Council Concerns

The 2004-2005 academic year was a turbulent one for the Harvard Undergraduate Council (UC). The College’s student government won praise from this page for a number of its more promising initiatives, but earned rebukes for a series of shortcomings. Failed special events, tempestuous internal politics, and unfulfilled promises of UC reform leave next year’s UC with a significant body of work to be done.

On Nov. 21, the UC and the Harvard Concert Commission (HCC) successfully brought cultural icon Bob Dylan to the Harvard campus. The well-publicized, sold-out concert at Gordon Track went off without a hitch and broke even. We were encouraged by the concert’s success, which made headway on an issue that had been a historical embarrassment for student planners.

But by year’s end, the UC had returned to its old ways with a sequence of costly flops—the result of poor planning, lack of foresight, and inflexible funding bylaws that prevent major events’ being planned sufficiently far in advance.

The most glaring blunder of this year’s council was its failure to secure a big-name concert, something that all candidates’ platforms assured in the fall. After months of promises that Springfest would include a performance by a major performer, much of the campus was delighted to hear that rapper Snoop Dogg would be gracing Harvard grounds. However, the HCC failed to deliver the goods. The commission clearly worked hard to secure the performer—the College as well as Boston Police Department served as insurmountable hindrances—but they cannot deflect any blame for his absence. That Harvard undergrads had no huge concert is ultimately the fault of the UC and HCC. The weekend, whose “Springfest Afterparty”cheap beer and loud music were supposed to be a big draw, ended up a crowdless flop. Regardless of outside factors, that flop reflects poorly on the council and its abilities to manage large-scale events.

The Springfest debacle was accompanied by other smaller unsuccessful events. On April 22, the UC’s Campus Life Committee (CLC) missed the mark with Havana on the Harbor, a UC-subsidized “booze cruise” that became a $2,350 failure. On the heels of a termbill fee hike that inflated the UC’s budget to plan events such as these, the council must be sure to investigate adequately and organize student events in order to gain trust from the student body.

But the UC’s year has, in some important respects, been uniquely productive. After the release of a UC report that called for a 24-hour library and cited survey data demonstrating tremendous student support for the change, the Harvard College Library finally agreed this year to a two-year pilot program that will see Lamont stay open around-the-clock during the academic workweek, beginning fall 2005. We applaud the UC’s persistence in advocating a policy change that is sure to benefit undergraduates come September.

A month later, the UC unveiled its report on dining hall hours, which it presented to Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) management. The report called for extended hours in undergraduate dining halls, which currently close between 7:15 and 7:30 p.m. each evening, long before most Harvard students even start thinking about sleep. This page expressed satisfaction with the reasoned and reasonable manner in which the UC raised the issue with HUDS.

Politically, the UC’s year has been a particularly tumultuous one. In December, hoping to establish a healthy creative tension between executives, we endorsed a split ticket for the UC’s Presidency and Vice Presidency, throwing our support behind presidential candidate Matthew J. Glazer ’06 and vice-presidential hopeful Ian W. Nichols ’06, who ran separately.

The disappointing result was not the outcome we had expected. Nichols never communicated effectively with his fellow executive board members and, faced with mounting calls for his impeachment, chose to resign on May 8. We expressed satisfaction with his decision, recognizing that the tension between President and Vice President, which we had hoped would be productive, was, in fact, quite the opposite.

In accordance with UC bylaws, a replacement VP was elected by secret ballot at a meeting of the full council, on May 13. Clay T. Capp ’06, who had run unsuccessfully for the position in the December elections (as Glazer’s running mate), defeated graduating council member Jason L. Lurie ’05, 22-20. His election by a narrow margin—against an outgoing council member—and his selection by the outgoing council, not by the student body, both spell a tenuous mandate for Capp, who must now tread lightly as he serves out the remainder of Nichols’ term.

And, finally, there is the UC’s significant council reform, on which it set out this spring. Promising proposals for a decentralized council, a streamlined grants process, an expanded CLC, and direct elections to the UC’s to-be empowered committees were all considered, with disappointing results. In May, a bill that would have introduced direct elections to UC committees—a reform we staunchly advocated—was defeated 18-13. We condemned the apparent death of what we consider the UC Reform Commission’s most important proposal, and chastised the UC for the destructive self-interest behind the decision. If council members are unable to put the wellbeing of the council ahead of their own ambitions, the entire process of reform is doomed.

It has been a year worthy of mixed reviews for the UC, as missteps alternated with strides forward in the council’s business. The record of the 2004-2005 UC leaves room for significant improvement, especially in event planning and council reform, but the UC’s promise in negotiating extended library and dining hall hours, in particular, leaves room for great optimism.