UC Elections Offer A More Diverse Council

The fall’s Undergraduate Council elections closed on Monday, revealing a new session of the UC that includes notably more women than last semester, and spurring speculation over the attempts of several active members of the Harvard Democrats to win seats on the student government.

One semester after council leaders identified increased diversity as one of their goals, 13 women will assume seats on the 35-person council this year, up from the nine that filled the roster last semester.

“I’m really pleased,” said UC Outreach Director Andrea R. Flores ’10, who sought to expand the UC’s candidate pool last month through measures that included a freshman campaign workshop and a panel for women interested in politics.

“I think the nature of any representative body that is elected by the student body should be comprised of half women and half men, especially if that is what the student body consists of,” Flores said.

A number of UC representatives also commented on the number of members of the Dems who ran for UC appointments this year and suggested the campaigns could have been an attempt to support a possible presidential campaign by UC Vice President Matthew L. Sundquist ’09, who received the Dems endorsement last year.

Prominent examples of candidates from the Dems included Maryellen C. ‘Mel’ McGowan ’09 and Indira Phukan ’09—both members of the Dems’ 10-person executive board—as well as Eva Z. Lam ’10. Lam served as chief officer and project manager of the Dems’ extensive 2007 report on Harvard employees’ working conditions, which was released on the group’s Web site at the start of this spring’s student hunger strike to support Harvard security officers.

Of the three, however, only Phukan won a seat on the Council this fall.

Matthew R. Greenfield ’08, who has spent three years on the Council, said the trend of Dems running for office—and potentially influencing UC presidential elections—was not unprecedented.

“The Dems have been proud in the past of their influence in UC elections,” Greenfield said. “Even if the Dems are undecided as to their political candidate, I could definitely see them trying to accumulate some political influence, so that maybe down the road they could help out a friend.”

The Dems have not shied away from helping UC President Ryan A. Petersen ’08 and Sundquist in the past. The two student government leaders received the organization’s endorsement in last fall’s election, and some Dems—particularly McGowan—were vocal supporters and organizers during the UC’s calendar-reform campaign last year.

Sundquist has said that he has no plans to decide whether to run for UC president until the end of October. But more Dems in the council could have been advantageous to a potential Sundquist campaign.

“I would go so far as to say that, given the Dems’ endorsement of Petersen-Sundquist last year, a significant presence of the Dems on the council would certainly help the sitting vice president,” UC representative Alexander N. “Zander” Li ’08 said.

Li, who chairs the UC’s Finance Committee, added that he believed that the efforts of active Dems to win seats on the Council may have been directly related to the onset of the UC presidential season and the prospect of Sundquist’s candidacy.

Yet Brigit M. Helgen ’08, the president of the Harvard Democrats, said she had had no conversations with Petersen or Sundquist about the elections, and added that an endorsement by the Dems of any candidate was premature.

“I don’t think that you can legitimately make a connection between the Dems on the UC and them being pro-Sundquist,” Helgen said. “Because even though we endorsed Petersen-Sundquist, that does not mean we will endorse Sundquist.”

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.