The Student Council now involves undergraduates--250 in the Combined Charities, 120 other non-members on various sub-committees--all going in any number of directions, one of them holding the same view on what the parent organization is or ought to be doing. Amid certain worthwhile endeavors and a slight but nonetheless discernible increase in student interest, the Council still fails to an identity, to define the extent of a domain. The Council has failed to arrow down the large and much too catch-all called "the purpose of the Harvard Student Council." As Howard J. Phillips '62, recently rejected President, admits, "The Council spreads itself too thin."

Even leaders of the Council can't determine the extent of the group's responsibility. Phillips sees the Council as "a representative group of student opinion--not necessarily a group of representative opinion." Another officer would prefer to see the Council emphasize a role of spokesman to other colleges for the Harvard student . Deans see the Council as a student-Faculty liaison, a ready of undergraduate sentiment, a source of a new idea or two. What Council members say in their regular University Hall meetings is often accepted as the general feeling among undergraduates.

Conflicting Viewpoints

Many members would insist on a nosey Council, a constant gadfly. Still others would have the Council act as a service group, initiating conferences, information agencies, and prospective-student services. A few students see the Council as no more than a hot-bed of amateur politicos. The Council does have its share of amateur politicians, whose antics create a misrepresentative picture of the organization as a whole. However many Council members, including some of its leaders, find that ambitious college-wide activities provide the best outlet for their ambitions; and this fact produces many of the Council's most valuable projects.

The majority of undergraduates--including several Council members--just don't know what to make of the organization. The image of meaningless dictums, quorum-less meetings, and scandalized or uncontested elections still plagues the "new" Council.

In 1958 the Council, feeling that similar problems challenged its existence, appointed a special reevaluation committee. Council members and students, whatever their conceptions of the Council, were so disgusted with the set-up that they were ready to accept whatever the committee had to offer. The committee, attempting to provide the Council with a raison d'etre, presented a three-fold statement of purpose "1) to render general services 2) to act as a student pressure group whenever it can be shown that dominant student sentiment exists for any change in the community 3) to fulfill such situational functions that may arise (e.g. the writing of reports)."

"General Services"

The first purpose offered by the committee was accepted freely and prevails today. "Services"--like a World Youth Festival in Cambridge, Volunteer Youth Services, week-long seminars, and forums--are wonderful, but it is debatable whether they best utilize the Council's position and talents. A student group must surely campaign for such affairs, but no group as large as the Council can be successful if it ends up delegating to itself every project that it deems necessary.

Twentieth Century Week, for instance, was an exciting and important addition to the University, and what it accomplished is a legitimate concern of a student council. But did Council labor have to carry out the program (labor that was much needed for projects within the Council), when he World Federalists or U.N. Council, say, could have been persuaded to take on the responsibility?

Spokesman for Student Body?

Although the 1958-59 President and several present members stress the importance of the group's role as a spokesman for the Harvard student body, neither Phillips, Dean Monro, nor the reevaluation report consider it one of the primary aims of the Council. However, the Council is not subject to the rule that prohibits undergraduate organizations from purporting "to represent the views or opinions of either Harvard University or its student body."

There is opportunity at National Student Association meetings and similar conferences for Council members to "represent" Harvard opinion, but Phillips says that Harvard representatives often disagree among themselves before student associations and always emphasize that they are speaking as individuals.

But it is inevitable that remarks made by Harvard individuals will be interpreted or misinterpreted as "Harvard's opinioin." What Harvard representatives say is influential because of the school's prestige, and people often find it convenient to describe an undergraduate's opinion as the College's stand.

For example, in November Phillips spoke at the fifth Anniversary Dinner for the National Review and expressed his personal belief in the conservative doctrine. Later, the Review published exerpts from Phillip's speech under the title "President, Harvard Student Council." In the Nov. 4 Wall Street Journal, John Chamberlain wrote about the popularity of Barry Goldwater's book at Yale and added later, "At Harvard. . .the new president of the student council turns out to be anti-Sshlesinger and anti-Galbraith, a crusading conservative in an almost forgotten mind."

This reporter, for one, received the following correspondence from a friend in Indiana: "I am surprised to hear of the rising conservative trend at Harvard and of the popularity of Barry Goldwater's book there. Your student council president has certainly changed things."

The question is not whether Council members have the right to express their own opinions when representing Harvard outside of Cambridge: obviously they do. But the fact remains that when they assert their beliefs too vigorously, their views are likely to be quoted and widely disseminated, breeding distrust and resentment among their constituencies in Cambridge, and misrepresenting the Council as an organization.

Student Council members also concern themselves with an imagined obligation to represent undergraduate opinion in each of its actions. The Council is justified in polling students and recording results in reports to University officials on unpopular foods, library complaints, or tutorial preferences. But a Council member cannot become preoccupied, as many do, with reflecting the opinion of his constituents. He must "deliberate on the general welfare," if you will. The Council must be a source of original ideas, not simply an agency the processes grievances.

The Council this year could not (and need not) claim to be strictly representative: 13 of its 33 members were elected in uncontested elections; nine members were appointed by their Masters.