Student Groups Face Administrative, Ideological Challenges

Epps Retires. Radcliffe's College Days End. The U.C. finds $40,000.

The past year will probably be remembered most for the administrative changes that have affected student groups in their relationships with the College, the University and each other.

The bombshell dropped on Oct. 5, when then Undergraduate Council President Beth A. Stewart '00 announced that she and Treasurer John A. Burton '01 had discovered a hidden windfall--$40,000 of students' money. It had been overlooked in a University bank account and had grown year after year.

The revelation sparked a year of debate surrounding what to do with the funds, the role of the council and student group funding in general.

A portion of the money was eventually allocated to increasing the council's grants to student groups. In addition, the council decided in March to earmark $25,000 for a cause designed to benefit student groups in the long-term.

In the largest single allocation of council funds ever, the group pledged the funds to a student center, in order to show the College how important such a building is to students. The allocation requires the University to initiate concrete plans for the center within a year.

The student center movement stems in the lack of student group meeting, office and performance space at the College. The ballooning in the number of groups in recent years has left three out of four without office space, according to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III. Others are in spaces drastically inadequate for their needs.

Epps was one administrator to fervently support the students' call for a center. But after this year Epps will take on a diminished role.

In the wake of Epps' announcement that he would retire after 26 years in University Hall, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 decided to restructure the College administration, eliminating Epps' position. Next year, students groups will turn to an associate dean of the College in charge of student activities.

One constant will be Susan T. Cooke, director of student activities, who was involved in such decisions this year as issuing regular account statements to student groups detailing their balances.

The council's treasure trove was not the only money sent towards student groups this year. A collaboration between Epps' office and the council established a new $25,000 fund for student groups that gave its first grants last fall.

In general, the new grants will fund small groups in projects where amounts under $2,000 will make a difference. Self-funding groups with legacies of buildings and alums--such as the International Relations Council, Harvard Student Agencies and The Crimson--continued to make strides through their own fundraising efforts.

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) is one organization that will not need the new funds. PBHA received an unexpected windfall from the will of Margaret Rey, co-creator of the children's book character Curious George. The $1.3 million gift nullified the need for PBHA's major capital campaign to begin in the fall.

But the administration shows both large and small signs of letting student groups down.

In March, when software license agreements expired with Microsoft, the College did not renew student groups' ability to use networked programs such as Word and Excel, leaving some in search of funding for the products.

Women's groups both gained ground this year and lost their largest administrative supporter--Radcliffe College.

With the college's status in question since April 1998, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) held a panel on Oct. 25, where group leaders protested that neither Harvard nor Radcliffe did enough to support women. The Coalition Against Sexual Violence (CASV) demanded better services for women, and the Seneca was formed to provide women social opportunities and networking equal to those of men.

In April, Radcliffe merged with Harvard and relinquished all responsibility for undergraduates. The move left RUS and groups such as Radcliffe Rugby, the Association of Black Radcliffe Women (ABRW) and Women in Science at Harvard and Radcliffe uncertain about their funding--and even their names.

Debutantes

The funding increases went in part to support the more than 20 groups students founded this year. At least eight were new publications.

Icon, an on-line magazine of cultural criticism, held its introductory meeting Sept. 24 and has now published two issues, to be found at www.iconmagazine.com.

On Oct. 5 the Harvard Current held an introductory meeting and began a process that may yet challenge campus news providers like The Crimson and the Independent. This bimonthly magazine aims to deliver original student reporting and analysis of current events, both local and worldwide.

Satire V, a humor magazine founded by first-years, printed its first issue Nov. 22. The Harvard Book Review, in which students review newly published works, debuted Dec. 6.

Zalacain, a magazine featuring student works on the literature, culture and history of the Hispanic world and Latin America, was inaugurated in March.

Second semester, Harvard Student Agencies released the first edition of a new publication, The Unofficial Guide to Life After Harvard.

Yet more new campus publications surfaced: Increase, a literary magazine that will feature the work of Mather House students, and Gamut, an undergraduate poetry magazine.

With all of the new publications dropped at student doors, they could drop by out of the way condom dispensers on those less literary moments.

AIDS Education and Outreach took the important and unprecedented step of installing free condom dispensers in all Houses.

Coordination and Controversy

This year's ethnic, cultural and religious groups have also been challenged to consider their role.

The Minority Student Alliance, for example, came off of a successful year to face a severe decline in members' interest. Only five people showed up at the first meeting of the group, which aims to coordinate activities of Harvard's various ethnic organizations.

But organizations targeting specific minority groups met with more success. Harvard's first chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hosted a crowd at its first meeting Oct. 8.

The Black Students Association (BSA) struggled to define its own duties and those of its sibling organizations, ABRW and the Black Men's Forum (BMF). The BSA handed over its historic cash cow--the Harvard-Yale weekend dance--to the two groups, citing the need to let their funds grow along with their memberships.

Larger organizations tried to strike a balance between politics, cultural and service activities. The Harvard Foundation of Intercultural and Race Relations hosted another successful Cultural Rhythms, its annual showcase of ethnically based performance. But some criticized the Foundation for avoiding political issues, such as affirmative action or the advocacy of a multicultural student center.

The organization opened a can of worms when it barred the Asian American Christian Fellowship (AACF) from participating in Cultural Rhythms at the last minute. The Foundation deemed the religious content of AACF's performance inappropriate.

The Asian American Association drew together representatives of ethnic organizations from across campus for a discussion of just how political the voices of campus ethnic groups should be.

Other groups took a leadership role by advocating justice and tolerance by directly addressing controversial issues. The Islamic Society held an Awareness Week, and Hillel sponsored events throughout the year that discussed religious tolerance. A December panel, for example, discussed the difference between religious tolerance and religious pluralism. Hillel also helped students remember the Holocaust's 50th anniversary with a panel discussion of Kristallnacht and screening of a movie on Auschwitz.

The Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender and Supporters' Alliance renewed its political mission early in the year with the tragic Wyoming murder of Matthew Shepard.

The student's death reminded them--and the whole campus--that tolerance and respect has not yet become universal.

BAGELS, a revived group designed to support and raise awareness about queer Jewish students, hosted a panel at Hillel on homosexuality and Judaism in early March.

But perhaps the most concrete advancement for a historically disadvantaged group came when two women were elected to head prominent student groups that had traditionally been dominated by men.

Virginia J. Beauregard '01 was elected president of the Harvard Computer Society and the Hasty Pudding Theatricals elected as its president Sarah A. Knight '00, who is also a Crimson editor.

Free Thought

Other groups urged less traditional forms of tolerance. These groups tried to ensure that a diversity of ideas at Harvard.

A fledgling organization called SHARE (Students for Humane and Responsible Economics) wasted no time in its efforts to expand students' horizons.

Founded in September to protest the conservative bent of Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein '61 in teaching Social Analysis 10, "Principles of Economics," a class of over 900 people. The group distributed fliers in the Memorial Hall transept before "Ec 10" lectures in Sanders Theatre.

The Harvard Secular Society kicked off its year on November 2 with a debate entitled "Skeptics vs. 'The X-Files.'" Society members argued that shows like "The X-Files" portray science in a bad light while endorsing the supernatural--which society members, of course, lend no credibility.

The society kept a high profile with an anti-Friday the 13th demonstration and anti-Santa Claus speaker.

Bringing the Real World to Harvard

Issues unfamiliar to most students sparked some of the most visible group activity.

The Progressive Student labor Movement (PSLM), a group associated with Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), kicked off a year of activism by protesting human rights abuses by the popular Guess? clothing company in the first Science Center protest of many to follow. Further rallies followed as a PSLM offshoot, Students Against Sweatshops, brought to Harvard the national movement to make universities accountable for the conditions of workers who manufacture their apparel.

Members of PSLM, founded in 1997 by several students who had been active in the labor movement on an individual basis, would later join graduate students to fight for a living wage at Harvard. The Living Wage campaign has now enlisted the support of over 100 faculty members.

PSLM seemed omnipresent spring semester, staging protests almost every week and even taking over the stage at Junior Parents Weekend.

But student groups' focus on real world events maintained and grew wider still as the crisis in Kosovo reached a breaking point.

When NATO bombings began in early April, the Institute of Politics sponsored two panels in two days: Darryl C. Li '99 organized a vigil on the steps of Memorial Church, and the fledgling student group Impact, created to aid developing countries and to offer emergency relief, organized several benefit events.

Other students recently formed an Albanian Club to discuss ways to address the crisis and its aftermath, and Amnesty International has collected donations to send to Kosovar refugees.

Harvard responded to the labor agitators by year's end. The University took steps to initiate oversight of its apparel manufacturers and had formed a committee to determine the feasibility of a living wage.

"Without a doubt, [this year] was an unqualified success," said PSLM founding member Daniel R. Morgan '99. He cited as an accomplishment "the ability to run large-scale campaigns simultaneously and effectively, with enough people to get everything done."