Staff Assertions About Proposed Increase Inaccurate

To the editors:

The April 19 editorial on the Undergraduate Council and the proposed increase to the Student Activities Fee (SAF) made three assertions (“A Vote of No Confidence”). While I appreciate the seriousness of the concerns raised, I feel that each assertion was inaccurate and has the potential to cloud debate on the upcoming referendum. First, the editorial questioned the council’s capacity to maturely deliberate issues of great importance to students because of “hostility and childish antics” at council meetings. In fact (as the editorial later concedes), decorum at council meetings has improved dramatically over the last several weeks. Furthermore, the “childish antics” that occurred in the past were isolated to three or four particularly disruptive council members—who also happened to oppose holding the referendum. The rest of the council has dealt admirably with these distractions, and has still been careful to fully debate important issues. The referendum, for example, was extensively debated both in committee and at two meetings of the full council.

Secondly, the editorial asserted that the council has shown “blatant disregard” for the will of the student body by defeating an amendment to the referendum. This claim is simply mistaken. In fact, the referendum represents the council’s full faith in the student body to decide whether or not to raise the Student Activities Fee. The amendment was voted down for a specific reason: because it would have disallowed increases according to inflation. Many council members initially favored the amendment, but when the sponsor adamantly refused to change its wording to except inflation, the rest of the council rightly rejected the proposal.

Finally, the editorial suggested that even if the referendum fails, the council still plans to “ram through” an increase in the SAF. This is false. Every member of the Undergraduate Council with whom I have spoken is committed to following the will of the students. I am convinced, however, that as students carefully review the arguments in favor of raising the SAF, they will see that all students—not just those on the council—stand to benefit from an augmented fund for student activities.

RUSSELL M. ANELLO ’04

April 19, 2004

The writer is an Undergraduate Council representative from Kirkland House.