CUE Imbalance Must Be Corrected

Harvard's student-faculty committees should be an excellent vehicle for students to air their views and defend their rights before administrators and faculty.

And they usually are. For years students on the Committee on House Life have struggled with House masters to preserve their right to choose in the housing system. And this year, student members of the Committee on College Life fought a strong, if misguided, fight for the university's recognition of a student arm of the Boston Church of Christ.

The Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) has proven just as effective, if less controversial, in its discussion.

But the normally congenial CUE sparked debate last week as student members took issue with the lopsided representation between students and faculty. While the CUE is supposed to be balanced between five students and five faculty members, in recent meetings at least six faculty members have been present, while fewer than four of the student members have been able to attend.

In truth, representation in the CUE is not a major problem. While the committee does votes, its resolutions are only recommendations to the Faculty Council and no one has suggested that the imbalance has seriously hurt students' interests. The chair of the committee, Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, has said that he has only recognized five votes from the faculty members.

"The understanding that I've been operating under is that there will only be 5 votes cast by the faculty," he told the Crimson.

However, the potential is there for abuse and it should be remedied. Buell has recently said he will do exactly that. While more than five faculty members may attend CUE meetings in the future, it will be made clear that only five will have the vote.

Buell has said that the imbalance arose because members of the faculty council asked him to sit on the meetings, and "more brain-power is better than fewer." Buell has said that he would do likewise if more students wished to attend the committee.

A few extra members may be helpful to ensure that the committee brings in as many viewpoints as possible. However, "more brain-power" should not upset the voting balance between students and faculty.

There's an even greater problem for students' representation when two out the five Undergraduate Council members cannot attend the full meeting. While students charge that Buell is inflexible with the scheduling, the dean points out that the meeting time is the same time it has always been.

Clearly, both sides' arguments have some merit. Buell said he is currently trying to find a time where all members are available, but if he cannot, the meeting will have to stay at the same time. This makes sense.

If every semester the CUE meeting is set for a Wednesday after-noon, the Undergraduate Council should not appoint members to the committee who cannot attend. If, say, Randall A. Fine '96 is unavailable, the student affairs committee should appoint another student to take his place.

This whole dispute raises the question of whether council members should represent students before the administration anyway. After all, council members run virtually unopposed in campus elections.

But at the same time, students have the right to elect these members. If they do not choose to exercise those rights and demand quality representatives, they have nothing but their own apathy to blame.

The only other alternative would be for administrators to choose interested students, which would select against dissenting views, or for students to elect committee representatives, which would be superfluous.

The bottom line is that the purpose of the CUE is for students' voices to be heard in an open discussion with the faculty. It may be unclear whether the recent imbalance has in fact distorted that debate, but Buell must ensure that the CUE is a balanced forum in the future.