UC, Deans To Discuss Grants

On what is being called “the make-or-break day” for the future of student-issued party grants, Undergraduate Council leaders will meet this afternoon with administrators to discuss the future of the grant process, and to verify how—and if—the funds the UC collects each year through a termbill tax will be dispensed to them.

Despite a letter last Tuesday by Dean of the College David Pilbeam, who cited concerns about underage drinking when he ordered the elimination of the party fund, the UC appears to be legislating as if all was business as usual.

Yesterday, the council voted unanimously to allocate $17,000 to allow for 10 weeks of grants.

The UC’s executive board met with Pilbeam in his office on Friday, but made “no substantive progress” on the party grants, said Council President Ryan A. Petersen ’08. Petersen was not sure if Pilbeam would be at this afternoon’s meeting, but said Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd and Associate Dean of Harvard College for Residential Life Suzy M. Nelson would attend.

Petersen, along with UC Treasurer Anthony R. Britt ’10, will also meet separately this afternoon with Dean Paul J. McLoughlin II, who is in charge of authorizing the UC’s receipt of its termbill money. Petersen said yesterday that the UC had requested a check from McLoughlin last Thursday, and that the dean had suggested today’s meeting would concern how money would be disbursed to the UC’s treasury this year.

In the past, the termbill money has been dispensed to the UC by McLoughlin in $50,000 allotments when the Council’s bank account was running low.

The UC’s funding comes from the proceeds of a $75 “UC tax” paid by undergraduates on an opt-out basis at the beginning of each year.

Last week, Petersen told The Crimson that the Council had enough money in its bank account to continue regular council business—a roster of responsibilities that includes funding student groups and House Committees, as well as parties—for the next four to six weeks.

But after that point, if McLoughlin does not authorize the disbursement of some of the UC’s termbill tax money, the Council would have to start cutting back operations, and, Britt said, party grants would be eliminated before HoCo funds.

Some Council representatives fear McLoughlin might freeze the UC’s funding. But Petersen said yesterday that such a scenario was unlikely, and that “by the end of the week there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have the check.”

“It would be an unprecedented display of illegitimate administrative intervention for funding intended for the Undergraduate Council from undergraduates to be withheld,” Petersen said.

McLoughlin and Pilbeam did not respond to repeated requests for comment this weekend.

In the meantime, this weekend’s party fund-subsidized shindigs went ahead largely without incident. Two rooms on either side of the fourth-floor landing in Kirkland’s H entryway, fueled by the promise of a $200 reimbursement, played host to a horde of sweaty weekend revelers, who appeared to be amply enjoying the issue of a then half-empty handle of Bacardi Gold, which resided beside bottles of Sam Adams and red solo cups littered under a feeble Christmas light display.

Kris Bartkus ’08, who hosted a party in Quincy’s balcony suite after verifying that his room would in fact be receiving a UC reimbursement, said the timbre of the celebration—if affected at all by Pilbeam’s ruling—was only enhanced.

“It’s nice to have a party grant when its sort of outlawed or spoken against by the administration,” he said. “That’s sort of icing on the cake. But we rock pretty hard anyway.”

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