UC Discusses Pre-term Planning

Undergraduate Council Representatives marked their final general meeting of the year with discussions about the potential removal of pre-term planning and a vote on previously-discussed changes to UC election procedure.

According to UC Secretary Meghamsh Kanuparthy ’16, Education Chair Darragh Nolan ’15 asked the Council for general reactions to the potential removal of pre-term planning. According to Kanuparthy, Nolan prefaced the question by adding that the Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith were considering a proposal to remove pre-term planning.

Kanuparthy said that the Council’s response to the proposal was mixed.

Dunster House representative Joshua B. Scott ’15 said in an interview after the meeting that he believed that when pre-term planning is “taken seriously” by the student body, it provides a substantial benefit to students and administrators.

“When you come here, you already have so much going on with move-in...but having some sort of a plan in action is wonderful in my book...when it’s done properly,” he said.

However, Scott said that he would welcome changes to strengthen pre-term planning’s structure, suggesting that the system could be changed to allow students to indicate the “degree of certainty” that they had about taking a certain class.

Scott also said that the fine levied on students for not completing the pre-term planning tool was a problem that needs to be fixed, especially because he believes students do not take pre-term planning very seriously.

Kanuparthy said in an interview after the meeting that he believes that students do take pre-term planning seriously.

“I had this conversation earlier, back when the results of pre-term planning came out,” said Kanuparthy. “It seems like it’s something that works and something I don’t think many people have a problem with.”

Although Kanuparthy said he supports pre-term planning, he said he would not be opposed to a new system to accomplish the same things the current system does.

“If the College thinks it has a better way of finding out what classes people are going to take and how to prepare for that then go right ahead,” he said. “One less thing for me to have to do, right?”

The Council also voted on Sunday to amend its constitution, adopting one of two proposals floated at last week’s meeting. The proposal provides a permanent fix for situations in which all three house representatives are committee chairs—for whom terms last until the end of the fall semester—leaving no open seats in the fall general election.

The proposal, now codified into the UC’s official rules, would ensure at least one representative election for each house or freshman yard. That fourth representative would serve his or her house for one year, with the number of representatives returning to three by the following fall election.

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