Just Be Direct

When I was hesitant about asking out the first girl I ever liked, my father gave me life-changing advice: “Just be direct,” he told his eleven-year-old son. I now find that at Harvard, the Undergraduate Council (UC) should take note of my father’s wisdom.

It is time our Harvard representatives think beyond their personal interests and change the voting system that governs general—not presidential—campaigns and elections. The UC is currently divided into three committees: Student Affairs Committee, Campus Life Committee, and Finance Committee. Representatives choose where to serve according to how highly they placed (first, second, or third) in their House or Yard election. Unsurprisingly, an overwhelming majority chooses the first committee; being on the Student Affairs Committee allows representatives to have first-hand contact with the administration and claim credit for advocacy successes. What follows is an overflow of uninspired representatives on the other two committees who do not get what they wanted; they are stuck controlling budgets and planning social soirées. This is the system of indirect election—leaders are assigned to their posts by the UC, and not voted into them by the student body.

As it stands today, indirect elections discourage sensible and thorough platforms when candidates are running. Since students do not know which committee they will eventually be on, they run campaigns filled with tedious generalizations and clichéd trivialities—“longer dining hours” anyone? A lack of platforms has also resulted in UC elections turning into popularity contests.

Last May, a bill was proposed to the UC to shift to direct elections and attract more people eager to manage financial statements or design cool social events. This would have led to more sophisticated electoral platforms, and consequently, more devoted representatives in all committees, rather than just one.

Regrettably, it got shot down.

Despite support from experienced delegates like President John S. Haddock ’07 and burly backing of the ad hoc Undergraduate Council Reform Commission (UCRC), freshmen UC representatives had a very strong role in tipping the vote against reform. Why? Because they feared that they would not have any chance of victory if there were three distinct, well, popularity contests in a House instead of a single ranked election. If all first-years had skipped the vote, it would have been a tie.

This selfish decision has had its consequences. The lack of reform led to uninspired delegates on the Campus Life Committee, which led to poor events being organized and finally, a dissatisfaction that led to the UC’s latest bureaucratic shuffle.

Last week, the campus woke up with news of the creation of a whole new behemoth: a separate social board from the UC. The administration has guaranteed enough funds for its first few years, but there is no certainty as to how it will survive after the checks cease. And on top of everything, now the UC has to reassess what it plans to do with its now-irrelevant social board. The approach was clearly mistaken from the start. We needed centralization and accountability, not the multiplication of elections and bureaucracy.

But most members of the UC do not seem to realize the connection between the two events. As late as last week’s UC meeting, you could count on one hand the supporters of direct elections.

When asked about future reform, Haddock said, “Everything is on the table.” I hope the following weeks will herald a much-needed bill favoring direct elections. Our UC representatives need to do what’s best for their constituency and forget their personal fears and interests. A policy of direct elections remains the best way for the UC to serve its fellow students, and, moreover, to show students that the UC is not irrelevant and that it can indeed be filled with enthusiastic and committed representatives.



Pierpaolo Barbieri ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Thayer Hall.