New HSA Board Faces A Year of Challenges

Preparing for a year of challenges and changes, Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) elected seven new undergraduate members to its Board of Directors last Thursday night during the corporation's annual meeting.

During their election speeches in Emerson Hall, almost all of the 21 candidates stressed that this year will be a crucial one for HSA.

The new board will have to face both contract renegotiations between Let's Go Travel and St. Martin's Press and a report from an independent consulting group on HSA's management structure.

"Fiscal Year 2000 will be a pivotal year for HSA [Harvard Student Agencies]," wrote Noble M. Hansen '00 in his letter announcing his candidacy.

The seven new board members are Hansen, Alexandra M. Leichtman '01, Kathy W. Lu '00, Andrew W. Mitchell '00, Andrew M. Murphy '00, Kaya R. Stone '00 and Joaquin X. Vega '01.

According to current board president Catherine J. Turco '99, one of the first things the board will be doing this year is looking into the recommendations of Technical Development Organization, a consulting group that focuses on non-profit organizations and recently evaluated HSA's management structure.

In his candidacy speech, Mitchell emphasized the need to restructure HSA in order to meet the needs of its various agencies.

"One of the big steps in HSA's future is going to be catering the institutional structure to the specific agency," Mitchell said.

The new board members will also face contract renegotiations between Let's Go Publishing and St. Martin's Press in November.

Fifteen of the 21 candidates have worked at Let's Go, a testament both to the fact that Let's Go is the largest of the agencies and also to the importance of the upcoming renegotiations.

"The upcoming year is a crucial year for Let's Go," Turco said.

The scheduled contract negotiations will begin in early November and last for several months.

"We have to consider which publisher can best further our interests not only here but overseas," Lu said during her election speech.

Many of the candidates said they want to help Let's Go get the most out of the contract renegotiations.

"I bring experience working on the contract negotiation team," Leichtman said.

"I think it's vital that the contract negotiation team has a say on the board and that the board have a say on the contract negotiations," she said.

Let's Go is the largest financial supporter of HSA, and as one of the candidates pointed out, the one which subsidizes many of the non-solvent agencies.

The new board members are representative of many of the agencies within HSA. Hansen has been the assistant manager of HSA Cleaners since March of this year, Stone was associate editor of Let's Go USA this summer, and Vega is the assistant manager of Harvard Student Resources.

Murphy has served as manager of Harvard Student Resources and the Harvard Bartending course, facilitated the merger of Harvard Student Resources and the Personnel Department of Harvard Catering.

The elections at HSA are not over. Three of the candidates, Hansen, Murphy and Mitchell are also running for board president. The election will take place on October 22.

Turco will train the new president of the board until her term ends next January 31.

The Board of Directors of HSA consists of seven University officials, seven alumni--typically Boston businesspeople--and 10 undergraduates.

Any undergraduate who has earned $100 or more from HSA is qualified to run for the board.

HSA employs 1,200 students and grossed $4.7 million last year.