Reforming the UC: Keep it Coming

When the Undergraduate Council Reform Committee (UCRC) met for the first time on March 18, it held true to Undergraduate Council form, with only about one-third of its 141 voting members in attendance. Still, we are hopeful that the UCRC will submit the kinds of responsible proposals for council reform it has been charged to develop.

The council has come a long way in the last several years, from the ranks of a scandal-infested glorified dance committee to a moderately productive forum for the debate of campus issues and the advancement of student interests. It still has a long way to go if it is to have legitimacy in the eyes of students, however, and its members were wise to create the UCRC earlier this semester.

Of course, like most council-related business, the committee has arrived with its share of controversy. Former council President Robert M. Hyman '98 has voiced worries about the committee's election of William M. Jay '98 as its chair, citing the political involvement of Jay, president of The Salient, as a possible threat to the committee's legitimacy. But Jay has thus far given us no reason to believe he is approaching his task with partisan motivations. And if the members of the committee focus on reform proposals which are designed to make the council a more credible institution, issues of political ideology will remain outside the scope of the discussion, as well they should.

A pair of recommendations are crucial to any sensible proposal for reform: First, the UCRC should recommend that the council decrease its numbers by half. If it is to garner the respect of the student body, its members must come to the council as the result of contested and well-publicized elections.

Second, it should be proposed that presidential and vice-presidential elections be moved to as early in the academic year as is feasible, and that they take office soon thereafter. This will put an end to the situation in which first-years spend an entire term with a council leadership they had no part in electing.

The UCRC finds itself with a golden opportunity. If it is able to rise above the bickering and foolishness for which the council has in past years become notorious, it will play a vital role in moving the college's student government further on the path towards respectability.