UC To Begin Amidst Changes

When the Undergraduate Council opens its first session of the year this Sunday, representatives will find themselves operating in a new landscape.

The UC enters the 2009-2010 school year with 16 additional members, three additional committees, and a new working relationship with the College administration.

Most representatives say the changes in the UC, which stem from the recommendations of last March’s Dowling Report, will increase both the scope and efficiency of the UC. Although some members say they are disappointed by the extent of the changes to the College administration, which fell short of some of the overhauls proposed by Dowling, UC President Andrea R. Flores ‘10 says she believes the reforms will move the UC and the administration in the right direction.

“We’re not going to ask them to do the exact things in Dowling,” she says. “There have been basic improvements.”

INTERNAL REFORM

In May, the UC passed the UC Reform Act, which amended its constitution to incorporate many of the changes recommended by the Dowling Report, a document that proposed suggestions to improve and empower the Council.

The act increased the number of representatives per district from two to three, increasing the Council’s size from 35 representatives to 51.

It also increased the number of standing committees from two­ to five. The Finance Committee was retained, and the Student Affairs Committee was split into the Student Life Committee and the Education Committee.

According to Mather representative Eric N. Hysen ’11, the additional members and committees will help the UC address a wider range of issues, which have historically taken a backseat to bigger student life concerns.

The UC also included additional reforms of its own in the act, including the establishment of the Student Relations Committee and the Student Initiatives Committee. “Our [Student Relations] Committee is going to be a well-oiled machine,” Flores says.

Lastly, the act increased the tenure of committee chairs from one semester to a year in order to avoid inefficiencies caused by leadership turnover, and allowed representatives to serve on two committees simultaneously.

GREATER ‘PARALLELISM’

The Dowling Report dealt not only with UC internal reforms, but also included recommendations for changes in the College governance structure as it interacts with the UC.

It recommended three student-faculty advisory committees—College and Residential Life, Undergraduate Education, and Student Services—each of which would be chaired by a Dean and correspond to a UC committee.

“By and large, [Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith and Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds] liked the recommendations,” said Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II.

He said that in response to the report, the College plans to merge the student-faculty committees on House Life and College Life, whose jurisdiction often overlapped, into the Committee on Student Life.

“There is a parallelism there,” said Hysen, who is also on The Crimson’s IT board, of the new structure. “There are nice lines between the UC’s committees, the student-faculty committees, and the College offices...that was one of the big goals of the Dowling Report.”

The report also recommended that the student-faculty committees be given decision-making power. Decisions could be vetoed by the committee chair, who in turn could be overruled by a two-thirds vote.

Hammonds and Smith disagreed with this particular suggestion. Smith wrote in a letter to Dowling Committee chair Professor John E. Dowling in May, “I would like to clarify...that the role of committees is to provide recommendations to the deans, who then make decisions with the benefit of those recommendations.”

Some students were unsatisfied by degree of change in the College administration.

“It’s important that the administration works to implement...provisions of really allowing students and student-faculty [committees] to be decision-making bodies,” said former representative Eric L. Michel ‘12, who is also a Crimson’s sports writer.

“The UC restructures itself every four years because its not really getting at the heart of the issue, which is the student-faculty committees. Their jurisdiction has been circumvented...by an explosion of deans,” said former UC Treasurer Anthony R. Britt ’10. “I hope that [the UC] continues to push for that.”

A NEW DEAL

One area of improvement, according to Flores, is the institutionalization of communication.

In previous years, UC leadership met with administrators on an issue-by-issue basis, which became “problematic” last semester, Flores said.

Under the new communication structure agreed upon over the summer, Flores—and UC Presidents in the future—will meet weekly with the Assistant Dean of Student Life, Susan B. Marine, biweekly with Dean of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson, monthly with Dean Smith, bimonthly with Dean Hammonds, and semesterly with University President Drew G. Faust.

“[We should] always get face time, always have a regular spot in University Hall, a regular spot on their schedules,” Flores said. “This will keep us from getting filled in after the fact.”

Over the summer, the College also appointed Marine as the official College liaison and adviser to the UC. According to Marine, the de facto relationship between the UC and College administrators has been formalized with her official role as advisor and liaison.

“I will be accountable to making sure that I hear from them and bring their concerns forwards and upwards,” Marine said.

McLoughlin said that there is now a clear and established framework for communication between the administration and successive UC leadership.

“I believe we have a great working relationship right now, and [I] hope that continues,” he said.

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