Harvard men will join 1,000 delegates representing nearly a million students from 315 colleges and universities on Saturday at an 11-day constitutional convention of the National Student Organization on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.
Boldly patterned after student associations abroad, the proposed NSO will seek to foster and develop campus activities which improve students' welfare, and conduct activities to bring American students into closer and friendlier contact with students and cultures of the United Nations.
Official University delegates at the convention are Francis D. Fisher '47 and Selig S. Harrison '48 from the College; Andrew E. Rice '43 2G and Jackson Toby 2G from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and Lawrence F. Jaffa 2Dv from the Divinity School. Alternates are Archibald J. Byrne 5G, Frederick D. Houghteling '50, William J. Richard '49, and Edric A. Weld, Jr. '46, Student Council president.
As members of the NSO Continuations Committee, set up last December to call the convention, Douglass Cater '46 1 P.A., Clifford R. Wharton, Jr. '47, and Donald S. Wilner '47; will play prominent roles at the Madison meetings.
Cater and Fisher will report to the convention on the International Union of Students and the International Student Service to which they were delegates at summer conferences in Europe.
Charles R. Conklin '48, originally named a delegate, will be unable to attend because of final exams here. One of the alternates will be designated to act in his place.
Whether or not the new organization will affiliate with the International Union of Students, with headquarters in Prague, is one of the most controversial questions to be considered by the delegates. The problem of representation apportionment among the schools and organizations which will make up the NSO will also receive much attention.
Meetings this weekend will largely be taken up with registration and information sessions. Next week, most of the convention business will be disposed of in three panel meetings, considering student government and its functions, educational opportunities, and international student activities.
The NSO, as now envisaged by the staff, will operate on three levels--national, regional, and campus--and will be a relatively decentralized organization, with activity carried on by three commissions to be set up after the convention panel meetings.
Full-time national officers--a president, two vice presidents, a secretary, a treasurer, and an editor--will be elected next Saturday, while the regional organization and officers will be decided next Saturday
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