Putting the U in the UC

Benjamin Franklin once said, “You may delay, but time will not”—words that must sting Undergraduate Council (UC) members ensnared in an 11th hour restructuring quagmire.

As early as last November’s UC elections, we knew that the expected creation of an independent social programming board would endanger the existence and role of the Campus Life Committee (CLC). The issue, however, was repeatedly dismissed by the UC. And now that the College Events Board (CEB) has rendered the CLC obsolete, the series of emergency council meetings held during reading period to address the crisis has left everyone very nonplussed about an issue we should have discussed throughout the semester.

Amidst the turmoil, the UC has landed itself in the position of choosing between two unappealing options—either to maintain the CLC or to create an Outreach and Services Committee (OSC). The CLC, should it miraculously persist into next fall, with its authority relegated to the CEB, will be left impotent and without a mandate. As for the prospect of an OSC, every UC member should be responsible for reaching out to his/her constituents, as part of his/her representative duty. Creating such a committee would exculpate our elected representatives from direct accountability to our interests. Moreover, it seems ironic and disingenuous that the UC is discussing the creation of an outreach committee without reaching out to the student body on the subject.

The “services” component of the proposed OSC is an equal embodiment of futility. The UC (specifically, the CLC) has struggled in the past in providing airport shuttles during recess and cardboard boxes during move-out. To continue to leave services in the hands of a few inexperienced representatives with little business acumen is tantamount to reckless abandonment of student welfare. We continue to encourage the UC to look for ways to outsource these services to student groups designed to carry out such initiatives and subsidize them with grants as needed.

Furthermore, even a cursory review of the OSC’s list of goals as stated in the legislation would reveal that such a committee is intended to serve as little more than a feckless appendage to the UC bureaucracy. The list includes such inane and self-important provisions as “offering to meet frequently with student organizations to coordinate affairs between them” or “developing further ways to promote understanding of the affairs and processes of the UC.” The infeasibility of a third committee option should have been clear in light of the “what should a third committee do” discourse in the past few weeks, and the proposal of an OSC in spite of this reality suggests that UC members were struck with a pretentious amnesia of one simple fact: The UC exists to serve a function, functions don’t exist to serve the UC.

Since the UC refuses to redress their ineptitude when it comes to restructuring, students should do so. We call on students to exercise their constitutional right to organize a petition and force a referendum on UC reform. Specifically, we advocate the dissolution of the CLC to a “2x2 system” in which the UC is structured around the two remaining committees with two representatives from each district. With social programming outside the jurisdiction of the UC, downsizing will lead to increased efficiency and sensitivity to campus needs in UC, as well as a greater sense of purpose for individual members.

We further call on students to demand movement to a direct election system in which UC candidates run for specific committees. Under current election procedures, representatives have priority in choosing where to serve based on ranking in their House or Yard elections, often leaving those with fewer votes reduced to serving on a committee to which they are apathetic. In turn, candidates, not knowing which committee they will be serving on, adopt generic platforms in their campaigns—thereby reducing UC elections to a popularity contest. UC members, however, continue to perpetuate these inefficiencies in order to protect their incumbency advantage, a disgraceful parade of egoism which we should repudiate.

The UC has had a string of advocacy successes over the last year capped by the realization of a 24-hour Lamont and a successful lobbying campaign to make social programming a priority at the College. But the UC has shown disheartening shortsightedness when it comes to looking introspectively and setting up a UC framework which will ensure continued success, while preventing repeated failures. The UC has failed to restructure itself in the best interest of students every time it’s been given the opportunity to do so over the past year—first in its failure to pass direct elections, and now its perplexing efforts to maintain a third committee when there’s no reason for it to be maintained.

We remind students that they have the right to opt-out of the UC term-bill fee in protest of the recent UC delinquency. If our elected government continues to fail in its efforts to reform, then it might be more compelled to do so with its financial solvency at stake.

We are sincerely dismayed that UC members have become this mired in a medley of self-serving and myopic politics. The UC is failing at its one job, representing undergrads, and thus students should drive for a referendum to bring needed change. A referendum might seem extreme to some, but dire times call for dire measures—and short of an unexpected reversal, these are shortly becoming dire times.