Money for First-Year Social Committee no laughing matter

The Crimson’s recent article (News, “Tickets to Dylan Concert Sell Out,” Nov. 1) may have treated my amendment to increase funding to the First-Year Social Committee (FYSC) as a joke, but it is no laughing matter. The freshman class composes fully a quarter of the student body and provides a quarter of the Undergraduate Council’s budget, but the council voted to make them eligible to receive less than 5% of the funding that the council made house committees eligible for. For fairness’s sake—not to mention that this year’s FYSC is the most active, enthusiastic and capable FYSC ever and already has a number of events in the works—the FYSC deserves funding commensurate with the number of students it serves.

I am also disappointed with the Crimson’s coverage of that meeting. I spoke on nearly every piece of legislation that arose on Sunday, but the article chose to fixate on one sentence where I chose my words poorly instead of examining, for example, my speech opposing structural changes to the council that will prove deleterious to its ability to serve students. In fact, the article does not even mention that structural change or five of the seven pieces of legislation the council considered at Sunday’s meeting.

JASON L. LURIE ’05

November 2

The writer is a Undergraduate Council representative for Cabot House.