UC Discusses New Junior Week Programs

During their general meeting on Sunday, representatives of the Undergraduate Council discussed programming ideas for a small-scale “Junior Week” which is slated to take place Thursday through Saturday on Junior parents weekend.

The program is meant to serve as a pilot for what the UC hopes will become an annual event for juniors.

“Community building happens a lot in houses, at the beginning of freshman year, and the end of senior year, but it doesn’t happen that frequently throughout your time here, especially sophomore year and junior year.” UC President Tara Raghuveer ’14 said.

Some events that are being planned for the week include a “Ted Talks”-style event featuring juniors, a ice skating night at Harvard Skate, and a group outing to a Harvard women’s hockey game on March 2.

The UC is discussing potential collaboration options with various other student organizations like Harvard Student Agencies and Harvard Speaks. In addition, the Council is seeking a financial partnership with the COOP to provide giveaways and food.

In addition to discussions about Junior Week, the UC considered student group funding proposals during the meeting.

The UC Finance Committee rejected grant proposals by the Harvard African Students Association and the Harvard Undergraduate Mathematics Association in the final grants package presented at the general meeting.

HASA’s grant proposal was rejected because the grant would have been used to fund an event that was only open to members of the club and not to the full undergraduate community, which is a requirement for UC grants. The HUMA grant was rejected because it would have been used to fund outside labor.

“Since all the money is paid by students and we want the money to return to students, we can’t fund a professional,” said treasurer Jonathan Y. Li ’14.

The final $30,201.78 grants package was passed by unanimous consent.

The Undergraduate Council also voted 26-4 on an act urging the administration to “initiate the process of restoring the [Memorial Church] bell to ringing condition.”

The historic bell has remained out of commission ever since a crack was discovered more than a year ago. Since then, the hourly bell sounds have been produced using a speaker and a recording.

In response to a question about the timeframe for fixing the bell, Adams representative Antone Martinho ’13 said that the University’s lack of a timeline was precisely the problem he wanted to tackle with the legislation.

“Part of this is we are encouraging them to initiate the process without any further delay,” Martinho said.

—Staff writer Steven S. Lee can be reached at stevenlee@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @StevenSJLee.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: February 22, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the date on which a planned junior week outing to a Harvard women’s hockey game is slated to occur. In fact, the outing is planned for March 2, not Feb. 30.