Social Planning Balance Shifting

This fall’s successful Harvard State Fair and Harvard-Yale pep rally shared one crucial ingredient: support from the Dean’s Office.

Though the Undergraduate Council (UC) contributed to the planning and funding of the pep rally, the event was thrown in conjunction with many student groups and the Dean’s Office, in what is increasingly becoming the model for large on-campus social events.

And as the Dean’s Office devotes a growing amount of time and resources to the events, the UC is more and more divided over the question of how much responsibility should be ceded to an independent group of administrators and students.

“Perhaps the people that would want to serve on a programming committee might be better suited to [plan events] than elected members of the UC,” Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 writes in an e-mail.

And the UC seems to agree.

The UC’s recently-tabled amendment to dissolve its Campus Life Committee (CLC) and replace it with an autonomous, directly-elected Social Events Committee (SEC) responsible for planning campus-wide social events indicates a growing sentiment that the UC needs to reform its social planning.

“I think people are right in saying the council’s CLC is not necessarily constituted of people who want to plan events—it’s people who generally want to be on student government,” says Harvard Concert Commission (HCC) Chair Jack P. McCambridge ’06.

All three of the UC presidential candidates have some form of social reform on their platforms. But the precise way that these reforms will be carried out remains unclear, especially after the SEC amendment was received coldly by the Dean’s Office, according to several UC members.

“If anything, the administration has come out and said the SEC [bill] is premature and that any process of social reform should be collaborative,” says UC presidential candidate John S. Haddock ’07, who is campaigning on a platform of removing the UC from large social event planning.

The administration is reluctant to address specifics of the SEC initiative because of the political sensitivity of the issue, according to Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd.

The Office of Student Activities is currently working on a report that examines social programming and allocations at other schools, and some UC members say that this report was intended to be used in the formation of a social programming board.

But Kidd says that the report is an attempt to learn from the bid processes of other concert commissions, in light of recent failures of the HCC.

LACK OF COMMUNICATION

With the creation of a new Campus Life Fellow position for a recent graduate to facilitate social planning—infamously referred to as the “Fun Czar”—the administration has been making strides towards institutionalizing social planning.

Though the UC and administration have increasingly worked together on events—including the recent pep rally—many say that the relationship has at times been strained by a lack of communication.

Even the specific relationship that the Campus Life Fellow position should have with the UC has remained ambiguous.

“I do think that he was there to work with the UC but it wasn’t clear on both sides what the relationship was going to be,” said Christina L. Adams ’06, who was chair of the CLC when Zachary A Corker ’04 first held the administration social planning job.

Former UC Student Affairs Committee Chair (SAC) Aaron D. Chadbourne ’06 adds that this undefined relationship comes from both the administration and the CLC.

“I don’t think they’ve worked together as well as they should,” Chadbourne says.

Some say that the administration’s haste to improve social life last year left little time for discussion with the UC.

“They wanted to do something and they wanted to do it fast, and they didn’t want to wait for discussion back and forth and for the UC to reform itself,” says former CLC Chair Lauren P.S. Epstein ’07.

She adds that she thinks the “perceived tension” between the Dean’s Office and the UC needs to be eliminated in order for progress to be made.

Kidd says that her office does not have any particular aims for taking greater control over the social planning or funds that the UC now holds.

“I don’t want anyone posturing that the administration has its own plan waiting,” Kidd says. “I think it’s very unhealthy.”

LOOKING AHEAD

The question of the UC’s role in social programming has divided the three candidates.

UC presidential candidate John F. Voith ’07, who is also the current CLC chair, advocates for a SEC Board that operates under the UC with a fair amount of autonomy, while Haddock’s campaign advocates having a student-run, but not UC-affiliated, planning committee. Magnus Grimeland ’07 says that he advocates the UC throwing “decentralized” events in conjunction with University Hall.

Corker released a statement on behalf of the Office of Student Activities affirming their willingness to act as a supporting role—and not a dominating presence to students in planning social life.

“If students are interested in talking about various options for supporting social life, the Dean’s Office is always available to facilitate discussions about ways to better support student initiated events and activities,” Corker wrote.

“I think a programming board in one form or another will evolve and that it will exist as a much more independent body than the current Campus Life Committee,” says UC President Matthew J. Glazer ’06. However, he says he envisions the budget as still being under the control of the UC.

Kidd affirms the need for student voice in any form of social programming.

“Students would need to be heavily involved in how all student activity fee funds are spent, regardless of which body(ies) allocate the funds and for which purposes,” Kidd writes in an e-mail.

Currently, the $75 optional UC termbill fee goes directly to the UC’s coffers, but some worry that part of the money could be diverted to a student-administration programming board that may be formed.

While current faculty legislation mandates that the termbill fee go to the UC, this could be changed after a Faculty vote.

Though he did not mention the termbill, Voith said the possibility of the administration taking over some funding was not wholly unrealistic.

“I have a concern that if the UC were to stop programming social events that the funding for these events would be diverted to the Dean’s Office,” Voith says.

—Staff writer Liz C. Goodwin can be reached at goodwin@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Nicole B. Urken can be reached at urken@fas.harvard.edu.