Mrs. Bunting claims that the issue of student membership on the Council is less political than it is practical: setting down rules for something that has never been tried could be destructive. "I'm hopeful that they can come often," she said. "But I'm going to have to feel my way on this. I will invite students to participate when I feel it will be appropriate and useful for them to do so."

She described RUS as being in a kind of experimental stage. Its exact role remains uncertain in the administration's view. But Debbie Batts and RUS do not share this cautious attitude. They feel that students should have a voice in all areas of college government. They want to be part of the "input," and part of the decision-making as well. They want more openness and candor, not tokenism and condescension, from the administration, say RUS members.

What RUS seems to need even less, though, is bad faith--on the part of its members, students and the administration.

Last month, for example, when RUS was not invited to the first College Council meeting, most students considered it an omen of RUS's doom. The meeting was held before classes started in September, and Mrs. Bunting explained that RUS representatives had not been invited because students were not yet back in Cambridge. While no one should ignore the possibility of subtler reasons, no one except the College Council will ever be able to do better than guess at them. RUS members were "irritated, but not angry" at not being invited. Mrs. Bunting argued that the tension came from the speculation about the motives of the Council, not from the actions of the Council itself.

Some students still say that RUS should have been angry anyway, and that its difficulties are rooted in its conciliatory "politeness" toward the administration. They contend that a tougher stand on the part of students would break the administration's resistance to student demands.

In spite of what these students may hope, however, RUS will never replace the College administration, nor does it want to. "The College Council doesn't want to be dictated to," said Debbie Batts, "and we really don't want to dictate. It's very hard to impress people with the more subtle things we're trying to do."