It's About Students

In the heated turf war between the College administration and the Undergraduate Council (UC) over the UC’s party fund, the final score has yet to be reached. But one thing remains certain: Students and student groups will be the first casualties of this battle unless both hot-headed parties back down and strike an amicable compromise.

Because of a deep-rooted belief that, in the words of Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II, the UC “cannot be trusted,” the College has flexed its muscles and threatened to not cut the UC a check until it terminates party grants. This would put the UC in a deep bind because it relies on periodic checks from the administration to keep itself afloat.

The administration has also introduced a new set of restrictions on funding for grants to House Committees (HoCos) and student groups—restrictions that will paralyze the UC’s ability to foster campus life. As part of its new measures, Harvard will not provide any money to fund events at which alcohol is present unless there is a Beverage Authorization Team present to enforce the legal drinking age, nor will it disburse funds collected from the $75 student activities fee prior to the UC’s submission of receipts for a given event.

On the other side, the UC seems to have lost all faith in University Hall. Beyond a sheer lack of diplomacy, in the eyes of the UC, the College has failed to show any respect to an ostensibly autonomous UC—“ostensibly autonomous” because since the UC was created by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, it is presumably also subject to its rules. That being said, the Faculty legislation that originally created the UC mandated that it would be a self-governing body. We believe, therefore, that the College should refrain from meddling in UC affairs unless University policy or the law is expressly violated. Funding of underage drinking may or may not warrant such intervention—the Office of General Counsel and the administration seem to say different things here—and the lay of the legal land remains muddled. Regardless, the College’s response thus far overreaches; to impinge upon student groups and House life for the sake of the Party Fund is unfair.

To illustrate, the College’s new policy requiring receipts for disbursement—meant to crack down on students and groups illegally using grant money to fund alcoholic purchases—essentially terminates the UC’s up-front grant program, without which many student groups cannot survive. Student groups with high fixed costs and uncertain and delayed revenues (particularly arts groups and publications) rely heavily on the UC to provide cash before an event takes place. Without such funding, students must rely on large amounts of their own liquid cash to front costs for which reimbursement is uncertain. The vast majority of student groups cannot afford to do so and will likely have to scale back their activities dramatically. That the College and the UC would let the stakes run so high as to threaten the livelihood of student groups demonstrates a clear irresponsibility toward the students that both the administration and the Council claim to serve.

Beyond the harm done to individual student groups, House life too has been dealt a severe blow by the College’s new measures. HoCos, which rely heavily on $4,500 per term checks from the UC for funding of stein clubs and other activities, will no longer be able to receive up-front funding for their events and expenses. Traditionally, HoCos have received a lump sum of money to pay for house social activities, thus freeing them from some constraints of the UC’s normal event-based grant process. In many cases, these funds go to smaller House grants for alcohol-free events. The new measures, however, appear to treat HoCos like any other student group, demanding that they provide receipts for any grant reimbursement, and requiring costly Beverage Authorization Teams to be present at any alcoholic event. By revoking this essential source of funding, the College will cripple HoCos, which will likely hoard all their funds for House formals thereby hurting smaller-scale House life.

Beyond these new restrictions, the College has threatened to create its own grant giving body should the UC choose not to comply with its demands. In doing so, the administration has further incensed an already indignant UC, which feels deprived of money rightfully allocated to it for disbursement to student groups. In the face of a limited budget, it is far better to leave judgments as to the relative worth of student grant applications to elected student representatives, who are both accountable to their constituents for their decisions and better able to judge the applications of their peers.

Both sides must realize the importance of their symbiotic relationship to the campus as a whole. The longer this battle continues and each camp refuses to negotiate or make any concessions, the more students stand to lose. The UC and administration each need to take a step back, stop focusing on how to thwart one another, and refocus on students.

The UC grant system, imperfect though it is, provides valuable and essential service in fostering vibrant extracurricular and social life on campus. By pooling the resources of over 6,600 undergraduates, the UC has facilitated concerts, publications, speaking events, study breaks, and the many other activities that liven up the campus. And it has done so for students of all socio-economic backgrounds, not just those with pockets deep enough to front cash for expensive events.

If anything is to threaten that—as the funding freeze and new restrictions do—it should be something more than a pissing contest between a self-important UC and an overly cautious and paternalistic administration.