UC: Cut the Fat with Pride

Two weeks ago, Undergraduate Council (UC) President John S. Haddock ’07 banged his gavel to quiet the grumblings in Emerson 105 and called the UC’s weekly meeting to order. “Welcome,” he pronounced to a large section of guests seated to his right, “This is the UC.”

Unfortunately for Haddock, this meeting presented anything but a flattering image of his Council. His welcome was the closest the room came to being in order for the rest of the night. The following three hours were an atmosphere of bedlam that resembled “Family Feud” more than a session of government, with Haddock acting the part of Richard Dawson more than Dennis Hastert.

There were cries for Haddock’s removal as chair, convoluted parliamentary maneuvers to invalidate other members’ votes, and a walkout by nearly half of the Council’s members. By the end, the remaining representatives barely mustered a vote on funding “discriminatory” student groups—a vote that was reversed a week later when it was determined that proper parliamentary procedure had not been followed.

And although the mayhem of that meeting has not been replicated precisely, the campus has begun to take notice as the UC tackles a far larger issue than its own intricate funding policies: the structure, and, in turn, the nature, of the Council itself.

The current calls for restructuring arise from the UC’s historical inability to successfully organize costly campus-wide events, such as last May’s SpringFest After Party and this fall’s failed Wyclef Jean concert, which fell under the purview of the UC’s Campus Life Committee (CLC). In response to this string of failures, last month the UC rightfully shed these responsibilities to a separately elected body, the College Events Board (CEB), which will operate independently from the Council.

The overwhelming sentiment, from The Crimson’s editorial page to house e-mail lists to pundits’ blogs, surrounding this change supports the dissolution of the CLC and the elimination of the corresponding one-third of the Council’s representatives. And the debate about restructuring gives the Council—and interested students—the chance to reconsider the proper role of Harvard’s student government.



HATING THE UC



In the midst of the Council’s juicier shortcomings and failures, the actual work of the Council is easily forgotten.

The meetings of the full Council are the culmination of representatives’ weekly duties, when the entire body is able to analyze and amend the decisions of the body’s three individual committees: the Student Affairs Committee (SAC), the Finance Committee (FiCom), and the CLC. With a mission of advocating for students’ needs (SAC), financing student groups, dorm parties, and House Committees (FiCom), and organizing services and cross-campus social events (CLC), the UC’s actions are burdened by substantial responsibilities and an annual budget of roughly $300,000.

The work of SAC and FiCom in recent years has led to clear and positive results for Harvard undergraduates. Among SAC’s successes are the extensions of the closing time of on-campus parties from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m., the opening of Lamont Library for 24 hours five days per week, and the lowering of the cost of some coursepacks next year. FiCom has guaranteed a steady stream of funding for nearly every Harvard student group and at the same time increasing allocations to House Committees over the last three years.

Unfortunately, though, these successes have been overshadowed in the eyes of the student body because of highly publicized CLC failures and lackadaisical (or selfish, or infighting) representatives who sustain the UC’s downtrodden image.

And despite the shared advocacy successes of the College and the UC, some college administrators lack confidence in the UC’s ability to harness its potential. “It’s the students,” said Associate Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin when asked about the Council’s recent missteps. “They have tons of resources, several officers, a very large budget, and an eager administration. Everything is in place for them to be effective, but they haven’t always been.”

And with a surface glance at the UC, such assessments certainly have strands of truth, which students have not been afraid to condemn. Whether written on redivy.org—the Harvard Republican Club’s blog—or bounced around dining hall tables, broad conceptions of “the UC student” range from “selfish fool” to “resume-building politico.” Who doesn’t have a UC representative who promised cable television during a September campaign and has since disappeared from public view?

There are the representatives who seem to view the UC as an optional playtime rather than a job or even as an extracurricular with duties. At the beginning of last week’s general meeting, 12 students were temporarily expelled from the Council—some for the second or third times—because of sporadic attendance. More disturbing, though, was the pervasive lack of respect that some representatives showed toward fellow speakers. During one recent meeting, a representative pelted his friends with Starburst candies, which in turn beckoned many others to wave their arms in childish glee, pleading to be targets. At another meeting, a different representative repeatedly shot a Nerf gun into the crowd whenever he felt that the discussion had become too contentious.

In many students’ eyes, these representatives are indicative of the entire population of Council members, which creates a difficult situation for many of the more active and involved representatives. Representative Matthew R. Greenfield ’08 acknowledged, “To let your name be associated with the UC, you have to have a tough skin.”



NOT FOR THE GLORY



So why do it? The cynical and most common beliefs are “for the resume” or “for the glory of winning an election.” On some level, that stigma is true. Students at Harvard are always looking for one more line on their resumes or one extra boost to their egos. With the significant hardships that are associated with being a UC member—mainly the massive time requirements and the denigrated public image—one would assume that UC representatives rely on a resume boost as consolation.

But for other UC representatives, including members like Greenfield who are constantly criticized for their political ambition, their involvement reaches far above Starburst fights and mid-meeting pizza runs, and the results that they create refute the prevalent sentiment that UC members are all bumbling idiots.

In addition, their motives are more developed and self-sacrificing. Successful students on the UC devote so much of their time to the organization for two related reasons beyond any access to that additional resume bullet: 1) an unusual selflessness that permits these students to surrender social and academic benefits in order to improve other people’s lives, and 2) the internal gratification that these students receive from the success of their work.

As Haddock said bluntly, “I didn’t join the UC because I love Harvard or I love the UC. I joined it because I was frustrated by my freshman social experience, and I wanted to improve on that for the future.”

Council Vice President Annie R. Riley ’07 elaborated on this principle. “The idea of public service and giving back has always been a big part of my life,” she said. “I initially had reservations about the UC because I didn’t think that I would make that impact. But I have come to realize, especially as vice president, how much the UC is like public service.”

To some, these words might simply ring of self-promotion or aggrandizement, especially in light of the lack of service that has been achieved during the Council’s recent battle over eligibility for student group funding. But even in this disappointing situation, where compromise was unproductively avoided, disenchanted students overlook the more constructive aspects of this story.

The ridiculous parliamentary procedures on both sides of the argument showed a rare connection between their representatives and their constituents, both of whom are legitimately divided on the issue of funding student groups that place discriminatory restrictions on officer cores. The ideological battle was extensively researched and even involved evidence from a professional parliamentarian from Oklahoma to deal with some of the exhausting constitutional complications.

That effort is not a sign of ineptitude, but an example of the vast amount of work, energy, and emotion that some UC representatives put into their duties. They—however few—prove that the Harvard student body can yield students who are willing to sacrifice so much of their time and social life for the betterment of the student body as a whole; they prove that the UC is a feasible institution.



DO WE NEED A COUNCIL AT ALL?



Nevertheless, students’ indiscriminate animosity for the UC is certainly one cause of the growing popular support for downsizing the Council. “But why stop at just eliminating CLC?” is a common cry amid the recent disappointment with the Council. These students have called for much more drastic action toward the Council than the plans currently on the table; as the infamous conservative strategist Grover Norquist would propose, students support “drowning the student government in a bathtub.”

Although this idea might appear extreme, it is natural to question why we need the UC in the first place as it examines cutting its size by one-third. The answer is not obvious. In order to truly understand the value of the UC, we must imagine a campus without the support of a centralized student government.

For the radicals who propose eliminating the UC, the UC’s inefficiency is an unsolvable quagmire within its current superstructure. The Council, they say, should either spin SAC and FiCom into two separate entities, or only SAC should remain while students directly fund their own student groups.

The first idea extends the “cut the fat” mentalitiy to its logical extreme: destroying all bureaucracy and reinvigorate the successful aspects of the UC without the inefficiency (and sometimes lunacy) of unmanageably large and broad-based general meetings.

But this plan forgets two important criteria that currently make SAC and FiCom not only successful but also viable.

SAC and FiCom, simply put, need checks while deciding massive policy initiatvies and expansive funding decisions. In general meetings, when SAC proposes a position paper or FiCom presents a grants package, the members of the other committee act not only as outsider, but also as informed, students. Each committee has a built-in focus group that it must satisfy each week.

Moreover, UC general meetings provide an opening—although rarely used—for students to make their case against committee decisions and try to convince other representatives to vote against a FiCom grant or SAC policy change, which would not occur if the committees existed independently. The time when each committee addresses the entire council is also an apt opportunity for students to provide input, and this chance would be lost if each committee met alone with no formal oversight.

But another important consideration is what the representatives themselves would lose if the Council were torn apart: the political and social community that the members have woven. Students rightfully want their representatives to be devoted, and as many representatives show every year, that commitment is achievable even in the frenzy of Harvard life. But it is both unreasonable and insensitive for the student body to expect its UC members to completely sacrifice their social lives at Harvard in order to satisfy our own needs.

The UC is still a student group, albeit a special one, and as CLC Chair Sopen B. Shah ’08 said, “Student groups are the lifeblood of this campus.” If SAC and FiCom were to split into separate entities, the sense of community and sociability that is formed in UC general meetings and the unifying responsibilities of the President and Vice President would all be lost. At the end of yesterday’s tense meeting, which was the last scheduled meeting of the school year, members swapped thank-you notes and posed for photos in jackets and ties.

Even though at times the UC seems like a bickering mess, Riley countered this perception: “I am always impressed how people can have a big fight on the floor, and at the end of a meeting, act as if nothing happened and hang out afterwards. Friendships are definitely an important part of the UC.”

UC members sacrifice enough in their duties, especially if they are committed, so they should not be further punished for their service by damaging the sociability of the Council.

STUDENT GROUPS FOR EVERYONE



The second idea is to dissolve FiCom and use SAC simply as a voice to the administration. For the cynics and libertarians who support this goal, students’ $75 termbill fee can never be properly distributed by elected representatives.

Some student groups believe they receive inadequate funding from FiCom. But a lack of funding is not FiCom’s fault; instead, it is the termbill fee that is one of the lowest among elite U.S. colleges. In addition, students have the option of “opting out” of the fee, which costs the UC over $100,000 a year.

Nevertheless, McLoughlin—even with his reservations about the UC’s efficiency—said the College administration and the Office of Financial Aid would help to make the UC’s fee mandatory, an idea that Haddock strongly supports. Although some claim that a mandatory bill would diminish students’ ability to keep the Council accountable, recent data from the administration shows that opt-out rates do not reflect changes in students’ feelings towards the UC; for the past four years, freshmen are equally likely—within one percentage point—to opt out from the fee as seniors.

This evidence supports the belief of many, including Haddock, that most students who opt out of the fee act under financial considerations and not on dissatisfaction with the Council. If the fee were mandatory, then financial aid would cover the cost for any students that qualify. With this extra infusion of cash to the Council and its funding priorities—student groups, parties, and House Committees—student satisfaction across campus would hopefully improve.

Other students are dissatisfied with any central distribution of student money, for they desire direct infusions of cash to groups of their choice. If a student wanted to give his or her money only to the Society of Arab Students, then these people say that that’s what that student should be able to do. Although this change might improve the happiness of organizations such as the Harvard Republican Club, which will be swimming in student donations, happiness is not the only consideration of FiCom’s distributions; fairness is also an integral ingredient.

Student groups that do not have wealthy students or do not have the cult-like following of a political organization or a publication would suffer immensely. Although some students argue that wealthy students’ subsidizing poor students’groups is also unfair, this sort of subsidy (such as financial aid itself) is already an integral part of this university.

Moreover, by funding student groups centrally instead of asking students to pay to join, FiCom lowers to zero the monetary cost of entry into student groups. On a campus where so much of social life and community revolves around extracurricular activities, we should not underestimate the positive impact that centralized student group funding already has on undergraduate life.



A SMALLER, LEANER UC



Recognizing the inherent value of a centralized student body, however, does not invalidate the possibility of improving the institution through substantial constitutional modifications. In the next two days, the UC has a chance to winnow many future Wyclef-esque failures by reconsidering its own structure. Since the UC was founded in 1982, the Council has moved toward minimization (see adjacent graph). At first, the Council was split into five, somewhat overlapping committees that lacked concrete missions and even less concrete paths of communication.

Over time, the number of committees has decreased from five to three, and the representatives from a one-time high of 96 to the current 49. In turn, a Council that was once famous for pushing through position papers on the Rwandan genocide (while ignoring on-campus issues) has become a full-fledged student service network.

Now that the CEB is planning large-scale social events, the natural consequence is continuing this “streamlining” and “cutting the fat”—as Haddock and Riley have labeled the restructuring process—and so the pair has promoted the “2x2 plan” as the best next step for the Council. Under this legislation, residential houses and freshman yards would elect only two representatives rather than three, and SAC and FiCom would remain as the Council’s two committees.

A few representatives continue to push for the preservation of CLC. But CLC will have essentially no mission next year. CLC’s remaining duties would be hiring airport shuttles, selling cardboard storage boxes, and coordinating one-dollar movie nights. None of those responsibilities—especially since Harvard Student Agencies claims the ability to tackle the first two—warrants a 16-member committee.

The idea of cutting a committee rightfully breeds fear in the hearts of many representatives, for “cutting the fat” means potentially cutting themselves from the Council. And as an alternative to the proposed cut, a few representatives have proposed transforming the third committee into either the Educational Advocacy Committee (EAC) or the OSC (Outreach and Services Committee).

The logic of axing rather than reforming the third committee stems from the UC’s inability to devise any beneficial or even logical plan for this third committee. EAC essentially splits SAC’s advocacy agenda between two committees while doubling its members: one part (SAC) would address residential and social matters, and the other (EAC) would address academic issues.

But as SAC Chair Ryan A. Petersen ’08 correctly argued on the general floor last week, splitting up SAC—arguably the Council’s most successful body—into two separate entities is not the solution to the inefficiency problems which haunt the Council. What’s more, the two committees will inevitably overlap in their mission and in their contacts with administrators, and so it will most likely end up in a similar situation to the disastrously unsuccessful committees of the original Council.

On the other hand, OSC initially garnered wide-ranging support from Council members as the way to increase communication between students and the UC. The ludicrousness of an Outreach and Services Committee, however, is conspicuous: UC representatives are representatives and should, by definition, be representing their constituents. And even though the pressures of school life limit representatives’ ability to form meaningful bonds with most of their housemates, ingraining that current shortcoming in a committee’s bylaws is not the solution; the solution is for the UC’s leadership to continue its encouragement of outreach under the current structure, and also for constituents to take that difficult effort into their own hands.



IMPROMPTU ACTIVISM



Thankfully, the importance of this restructuring has caused a number of students—especially a group of seven campus leaders including former Harvard College Democrats President Gregory M. Schmidt ’06, Harvard Republican Club President Stephen E. Dewey ’07, and blogger Leah M. Litman ’06—to reach out to representatives and house e-mail lists this weekend to express their disappointment with the OSC proposal. In turn, the Council voted yesterday against the OSC (and subsequently the EAC), and what remains are two options: 2x2 or a defunct CLC.

Tomorrow, when this vote ends at the commencement of the UC’s first emergency reading period meeting, not only the structure of the UC rests in the balance, but also the trust of much of the student body. If the UC votes against 2x2 and keeps CLC on life support for another semester, all of the negative perceptions of UC members will be reinvigorated.

The 46 eligible representatives must look to what’s best for the future of the Council, and that is not 16 mission-less representatives. If for some strange and exciting reason next year, the student body reverts course and decides that the UC should be taking on expanded roles, it is unlikely that the UC will not vote to expand itself again to provide for those needs. But at the moment, the only answer to improving the UC’s reputation, its efficiency, and hopefully its membership is to vote 2x2. Then, maybe, a president’s welcome of “This is the UC” will inspire a much better image of the Council than the one the student body has recently seen.



Andrew D. Fine ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Stoughton Hall.