Bakal For U.C. President

The Undergraduate Council really irritates me. If I see, hear or smell Rudd Coffey in my dining hall one more time, I think I will be sick. The Council's brat pack fights are the best. This week's hair gripping theme: Rudd Coffey scurries through the campus disguised as a maintenance man ripping off Rob Hyman's posters and erasing his juicy campaign slogans from the blackboards of lecture halls. My goodness! Coffey really should be shot, then.

Let me help you out, Rob Hyman: the wind has been blowing pretty strong lately and posters tend to fly loose. And sometimes when professors use the blackboard during lecture they like to erase whatever is on it. Now stop wasting my time.

The Council is in actuality a bunch of guys who use membership in the council as an excuse to wear a jacket and a tie during the week to look older and sophisticated. They have come to redefine school government as an institution of stupidity and immaturity, often consisting of tools.

In the past, I have always stayed away from discussing the Council in my columns. I prefer to observe their stupidity and worthlessness from a distance, laughing silently to myself. But this has somehow changed with this year's elections. I honestly believe, my doubtful readers, that there is a candidate out there who can be less annoying than Rudd Coffey. I am not being sarcastic. In fact, I honestly believe that he is a great candidate: dedicated, strong-willed and with the power and the desire to really change the degenerating reputation of the Council with some innovative ideas and proposals. And he is by no means a tool. Thus, I must add my two cents concerning this most worthy candidate.

Matt Bakal has chosen, as we have seen from his comments in The Crimson earlier this week, some interesting perspectives to improve the "daily qualities of life for the student." One of Bakal's main interests and projects, if elected, would be to tackle the issue of advising at Harvard. I happen to have a big problem with the advising system at this school: It sucks.

Bakal is ready to admit that the advising system is completely inadequate, but it is not irreparable. With the establishment of a strong advising system the daily operations of being a student are made easier and more comprehensible. This issue has been too big for the ever seemingly powerful and intelligent but really useless and retarded Council to handle before Bakal.

He believes that if the Council tackles the issue of advising and produces an actual advising system for the students at Harvard, many more issues which are serious concerns for students could be addressed in a friendly and more comfortable setting. For example, the eternal and yet most annoying debates on randomization and the Core could then be dealt with. Bakal recognizes that an advising system is the foundation of a higher quality of life in the University, a realization no one has had before.

Most unique about Bakal is that he aims big but he also aims small. Attempting to deal with the advising issue is a formidable challenge for a Council president (one must admire Bakal's courage). Bakal understands that the problem of advising may not see large change and solution immediately. But he is refreshingly okay with that.

But this candidate also aims to repair small things at this school which make a large difference. He is aware that some of the most impressive achievements of the Council have been things like shuttle buses to Yale or to Logan Airport. However small these contributions may seem to the council (or their resumes) they are nevertheless vital and important. They show that the Council is actually thinking about the students by not kissing butt to administrators.

Bakal's "small" but significant contribution proposal is for desk lamps. Desk lamps! How many times have I complained about the poor lighting in my room. And how many times have I cursed the fact that I have to go to the overpriced Coop to buy a halogen lamp. A desk lamp. Now that is good thinking. They would be a very welcome addition. So would Matt Bakal and maybe then I could be proud of my student government and stop laughing at it. Although that has been fun, too.

Nancy Raine Reyes' column appears on alternate Saturdays.