UC Rejects Committee

The constitutional amendment to create a new Outreach and Services Committee (OSC) to replace the Undergraduate Council’s current Campus Life Committee (CLC) failed yesterday evening, following a week of protest over campus blogs and the UC-General e-mail list.

The failed amendment means that the council will now have until Tuesday to vote on a new constitutional amendment, called “2x2” by amendment sponsor UC President John S. Haddock ’07, to reduce the structure of the council to two committees­­—the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) and the Finance Committee (FiCom)­­—and representation to two members per House. Pending the passage of the 2x2 amendment, CLC remains a UC committee.

Like the OSC amendment, the 2x2 amendment will require three-fourths of the council’s votes to pass, with two-thirds of the council casting ballots­.

UC members have until the calling-of-order of the next council meeting, scheduled for tomorrow, to cast their vote. Members can also change their votes until the start of that meeting.

As of last night, the current vote tally on the 2x2 proposal was 21-14-7.

At the close of last Monday’s council meeting, the OSC amendment had 20 members voting in favor and two against. Twenty-seven members had not yet voted.

The change in UC members’ votes on OSC came after a week of criticism of the amendment by several campus blogs, particularly the blog Team Zebra.

Following five days of blogging and emails from undergraduates opposed to OSC, the final vote tally for the amendment came in last night at 20-23.

Team Zebra, Dem Apples, and Red Ivy bloggers were present to live-blog yesterday’s meeting. Supporters of the 2x2 proposal, many of them affiliated with the blogs, also held up signs in support of the proposal.

The options that now remain for the council is whether to keep the council’s current structure­—with CLC, SAC, FiCom, and three members per House—or to pass Haddock’s 2x2 proposal to reduce the council to two representatives per House and to eliminate CLC.

An earlier proposal to keep the UC's membership to three members per House and to split SAC into an Educational Affairs Committee (EAC) and a Student Advocacy Committee was postponed indefinitely by council members at yesterday’s meeting.

This means that the EAC amendment, as it is commonly known, cannot be considered again unless it is introduced as new business.

The argument for eliminating CLC is that the College Events Board (CEB) created by the UC last month will plan campus-wide social events.

Planning such events had been in the past a big part of CLC’s mission, in addition to providing services such as holiday shuttles and one-dollar movie nights.

With events such as the Harvard-Yale pep rally and Yardfest now under the responsibilty of CEB, council members in favor of the 2x2 proposal say that UC members on CLC next fall would not have enough to do to justify having a third committee.

UC members opposed to the 2x2 proposal worry that the Council will be too small to effectively serve students. “2x2 is not a plan, it’s a lack of a plan,” Raul A. Campillo ’09, CLC services vice-chair, said.

Campillo, who was vocal in his support of CLC during yesterday’s meeting, said that Harvard students have taken advantage of services offered by CLC­, such as holiday shuttles and boxes, and that outsourcing them to other organizations might cost students more than the non-profit mission of the UC.

Neeraj ‘Richie’ Banerji ’06, a Team Zebra blogger, said he got involved with this debate so that UC members could see the “bigger picture as to where their little vote is going” in regards to student opinion.

“We really care about 2x2 because it just makes sense for everyone,” he said.

Leah M. Litman ’06, another Team Zebra blogger, said that the 2x2 proposal would make UC members more accountable to their constituents and to the UC as an organization.

Litman said that there were 36 council members present at yesterday’s meeting, and that if the 2x2 proposal was adopted, the council would have 35 members.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.