Big Battles, Small Successes

This year, amid flaring tempers and the usual personal politicking, the Undergraduate Council (UC) eked out a pocketful of notable successes. By year’s end, many of the UC’s activism goals had been reached, and the Council succeeded in restructuring itself to better serve its constituents.

Still, the year began less than swimmingly. September’s general elections saw a low turnout not only of voters, but also of candidates; in a few Houses, there were more open positions on than there were candidates to fill them. Inadequate publicity was largely to blame for the shortfall, and as the semester went on, it became readily apparent voter and candidate apathy were just a small part of the UC’s publicity shortcomings.

In mid-October, the UC and the Harvard Concert Commission (HCC) announced, with great fanfare, that hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean would headline the fall’s major campus concert. “We are confident that the HCC has it right this year,” we exclaimed at the time. “Wyclef will certainly stir significant interest.” Ultimately, however, the concert was an unmitigated failure. Ticket sales were so abysmal that the whole affair was called off less than a week beforehand, costing the UC more than $25,000 in lost deposits. A vaguely introspective campaign of self-flagellation followed, but a few weeks’ worth of audits and investigations produced little immediate change.

The Council did enjoy a number of small successes in the fall. In November, the UC’s party grants process was modified to grant $200 to residents of “super party suites” across campus, such as Eliot House’s “Ground Zero” and Currier House’s “Ten Man” suite. The increased funding was a promising change, but fears remained that anemic publicity would condemn even these double-funded parties to obscurity.

The UC made limited headway in addressing its publicity deficiencies during the year. Notably, the Council’s website remains just as much of an ugly, information-poor disgrace as it was at the beginning of the year. But the UC did resuscitate the dormant “UC Weekly,” an e-mail newsletter that describes the UC’s activities and that lists the weekend’s grant-receiving parties.

Perhaps as a consequence of its difficulties communicating with constituents, the UC earned its fair share of negative publicity during the year. In mid-November, the UC passed a resolution in support of Harvard’s janitors, who were, at the time, in contract negotiations with the University. By taking a position on the issue, the UC overstepped its bounds, first because UC representatives are elected without regard to their positions on such political questions, and second because the UC’s proclaiming the opinion of the student body on such an important community issue is beyond its role as a student government.

The controversy blew over just in time for this year’s unusually tumultuous presidential elections, during which one campaign accused another of registering its rightful website address and student groups accused the same campaign of equivocating its position on ROTC. The campaign of John F. Voith ’07 and Tara Gadgil ’07, the target of these accusations, was also accused of attempting to convince rival ticket Magnus Grimeland ’07 and Thomas D. Hadfield ’08 to withdraw from the race.

With former frontrunners Voith and Gadgil embroiled in controversy, John S. Haddock ’07 and Annie M. Riley ’07 won an easy victory. We had gingerly endorsed Voith and Gadgil on the basis of their platform, but we rescinded that endorsement before the campaign’s end after the most serious of the accusations came to light.

The UC began the spring semester with the annual debate about finding “discriminatory” student groups, defined as any organization that in any way restricts membership or officer-ship on the basis of a long list of attributes, including sex and religion. Such had long asked for, and had occasionally been granted, suspensions of the UC’s bylaws to allow their public events’ to be funded. When legislation that would allow events-based funding for these groups came before the Council in April, the legislation was hotly—and chaotically—debated over several meetings.

Several days after the legislation failed to attain what was thought to be a required two-thirds majority, the UC discovered that in fact only a simple majority ought to have been required. At the UC’s next meeting, the legislation was deemed to have passed. The ultimate outcome compromised the UC’s strong stance against student group discrimination, and we were disillusioned by the procedural hanky-panky that brought it about.

In the midst of the overt politicking, the UC managed a number of advocacy successes this spring. Their efforts to make Harvard maintenance workers wear identification badges while on the job were welcome, and their campaign to give Harvard students a more free choice of roommates by eliminating restrictions on mixed gender rooming will improve the quality of life of those students uncomfortable with mandated single-sex housing. Additionally, the UC advocated reduced textbook costs for students on financial aid and encouraged the College to coordinate online resources to bring coursepack costs under control.

The year ended with a final display of political fireworks. After the UC spun off its social programming functions to an independent, University Hall-funded College Events Board mid-semester, it had to consider what to do with its third wheel, the Campus Life Committee (CLC). Suggestions ranged from replacing CLC with a Educational Advoacy Committee, to creating a third UC committee dedicated outreach activities and student services, to eliminating the third committee altogether. After a preliminary vote reduced the UC’s options to either creating an outreach committee or maintaining the CLC without a defined function, constituents intervened in support of a two-committee structure. Ultimately, the UC relented, CLC was scrapped, and next year students will elect just two representatives to serve their respective districts.

It has been an exciting year for the UC. In the midst of more-than-the-usual waste, scandal, corruption, and self-absorption, the UC managed to carry out a number of important advocacy goals and structural reforms that will, we hope, make a positive difference to undergraduates next year. But an overabundance of internal politicking and overconcern for the intricate details of the Council’s own internal policies sidetracked the UC from an ambitious and important advocacy agenda. From our perspective, this has certainly been an entertaining year in UC affairs. Unfortunately for the UC, however, that’s not necessarily a good thing.