UC Embarks on HoCo Outreach

The Undergraduate Council voted last night to create a formal UC-House Committee liaison program, as part of the UC’s renewed efforts this year to become more responsive to student concerns.

The legislation sets an expectation that all upperclassmen UC members will regularly attend their House HoCo meetings.

“Somehow the UC has lost touch with the student body,” said legislation co-sponsor Felix M. Zhang ’11 during last night’s meeting. “Upperclassmen identify with their House...so as the UC, we should be liaisoning with HoCos.”

“Often times HoCo chairs care a lot about the campus community, but are not really interested in the UC,” said Student Relations Committee Chair Daniel V. Kroop ’10. “This is a way to make sure people who do have opinions about the campus are being reached out to.”

Kroop said that formalized communication with HoCos, including questionnaires or surveys, will help the UC obtain more “quantitative measures” of student opinion.

“[For example,] we might ask about hot breakfast...for eggs, would you be willing to give up some desserts?” he said. “These things are hard to for us to get a sense of.”

According to Kroop, the UC is also interested in better understanding how the $140,000 allocated to HoCos every year is spent, and if and how it might be spent more effectively.

In addition to the HoCo liaisons, freshmen representatives will be expected to table biweekly in Annenberg to better reach out to their constituencies.

LATE SHIFT

The UC also officially shifted the times of freshman Brain Break in Annenberg to open and close half an hour later, changing it from a 8:45 p.m. - 10:15 p.m. schedule to 9:15 p.m. - 10:45 p.m. The modified times were based on the same change proposed and implemented last year by former UC representative Benjamin M. Zagorsky ’12, who reported to the UC at the time that the earlier half of Brain Break was poorly attended by freshmen.

According to South Yard representative Crystal D. Trejo ’13, the early brain break hours were a widespread concern among freshmen this year, and many students had expressed satisfaction with the change.

“We hope the volume of students who actually attend Brain Break will increase,” said North Yard representative Winston S. Waters II ’13. “This is a really great thing for the freshman class.”

The UC also voted in support of developing an official alumni organization for the UC.

—Staff writer Melody Y. Hu can be reached at melodyhu@fas.harvard.edu.