The Student Council now involves 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 Conflicting Viewpoints Many members would insist on a 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. The Student Council Committee on Educational Policy, according to its members, would be less successful in formulating policy if it were strictly concerned with reflecting student opinion. The SCCEP found in a poll list term that four out of five students involved praised Sophomore Standing; the Committee, however, agreed earlier that its recommendations would not necessarily mirror the results of the survey. Pressure Group The Student Council is at its If nothing more, Student Council reports--by their very titles--expose areas of the University about which interested students are suspicious: Health Services, Harvard Student Agencies, Dining Halls, Athletics, Sophomore Standing, tutorial, religion at Harvard. But some reports do little more than this. It is all too easy for Council researchers to take the word of Dr. Dana Farnsworth or Dustin Burke or Thomas Bolles or the Deans. Phillips feels that Council members often do not pry enough. When Council reports are condemned as "rubber stamps," the purpose of the investigation is forgotten and the Council suffers another setback. The December Health Services report did not question the management's contention that things would be fine after the new Health Center was in use; the report dealt with temporary problems of emergency rescue procedure and neglected to prove or disprove serious complaints and rumors that need clarifications. The inspiration for the report, too, came from a series of letters in the CRIMSON, not from a conscientious Council member. The Athletic report passed over in a paragraph the whole attitude of the College towards football, and its intepretation of athletes' grades sounded Relentless "Diggers" From the Administration's point of view, however, Council members seem relentless "diggers." Administration officials, says Dean Monro, "can tell immediately whether a Council reporter is responsible and sensible, and if he is there is no reason why he is not entitled to know everything that a member of an Overseers' Visiting Committee is told." Monro and others have pointed out that Faculty members and Administrators are often less reluctant to divulge information for a careful non-publicized Student Council report than for a CRIMSON news story. But many Council members have complained that "you have to keep hammering," or "it takes years to get what you want." An official who has worked closely with Council investigators praised the students' work but added the revealing remark, "They are easy to satisfy." Student Council reports, on the whole, are useful documents. Monro keeps a bound volume set in his office for reference and admits that a particularly perceptive report on the freshman year (1954-55) changed his mind on the subject. Behind the Scenes Work To Monro, the Council as a pressure group works best in quiet, behind-the-scene ways. This work includes the unpublicized but probably appreciated efforts of the Library Committee to convince the Lamont staff that reserve books could circulate for three hours outside of the building and that there was a disagreeable odor somewhere in the library. The Dining Halls Committee saved the total of one serving lady's salary in each House by turning the coffee urns around for self service and by instituting milk machines. If it received publicity, this work would be harder to accomplish and would appear ludicrous. Still, it is the sort of thing that Council membership involves and the kind of complaint that students would rarely pursue on their own. Here again, though, the Council manages to get trapped by its desire for publicity. Many chances for valuable "detail" have been lost because of statements made by Council members. For some reason, they frequently manage to make themselves appear pompous and naive--and make their projects appear irrelevant--when they present them to the student body. The SCCEP also works in an unpublicized way, with all of the advantages of non-sensational, off-the-record coercion. Several students are like a former Freshman Council leader who prefers to work on sub-committees and concentrate on specific areas but who has very little desire to run for a seat on the parent organization. However, behind-the-scenes work, though effective, does not create the efficient, persuasive image of the Student Council that it needs to attract candidates for election. The dilemna of the Council is that its best work is done without publicity but its hopes for membership depend on publicity for what it has done. Long, carefully written reports get the publicity; detailed, informal work gets the results. The Council's problem is not, by any means, an easy one to resolve. A starting step would be to find out just what a Harvard Student Council should and should not do.
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FACULTY HAS NO PLANS TO CHANGE CLGS POLICY
