The Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) will call to order the first of its monthly meetings this afternoon, faced by challenges to its legitimacy as the channel for student input into university decisions and gearing up to deal with a wide-range of new issues.

Even as the dust settles from the controversy surrounding the implementation of Dean Fox's plan to house all freshmen in the Yard, student CHUL representatives said last week they foresee student access to Faculty budgetary data, the closing of the Freshman Union to upperclassmen, the new breakfast plan and pre-freshman year assignment of Houses as the major issues of this afternoon's and future meetings.

Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, will bring before CHUL today a request for official recognition of the Student Lobby, one of the two student advocacy groups challenging CHUL's viability. The group, which organized last week's "Eat-in" breakfast protest, hopes to form a permanent mass-membership, all-student body to present student positions to the administration.

And in another challenge, the Currier House Committee sent to all House committees a request to send delegates to a "constitutional convention" where representatives will draw up a charter for a student government. Organizers said last week they hope the government will coordinate a unified student response on all student-faculty committees.

Organizers of the groups cite CHUL's inability to present a unified student voice and to affect changes in University policy as among their reasons for building the groups.

Now in its seventh year, CHUL was created by Faculty legislation in response to student demands for direct participation on Faculty committees. Officially a standing committee of the Faculty, the student seizure of University Hall in 1969 triggered the formation of the combined CHUL, which is composed of a student representative from each House, every House master and eight administrators including the deans of the College and the Faculty. CHUL's sole official role is to recognize undergraduate organizations; beyond this, the Committee serves to review undergraduate regulations and advise the dean.

Despite CHUL's lack of legal authority, the students seem prepared to begin flexing their muscles. Several of CHUL's student members said last week they plan this year to try to gain more control over the College budget. Many of them view the budget as a sieve through which all new proposals must pass, a possible veto point for all actions students may propose.

Student budgetary demands fall into two categories: access and influence. CHUL members have almost complete access to the "91 account"--the budget for non-academic college expenditures. (Administrators prohibit full access since it would permit students to learn the salaries earned by particular staff members.) The 91 account includes such items as House funds for tutors, House activities and libraries, and shuttle bus service.

Almost every student member however, feels CHUL has access to the food services budget. Last winter CHUL's Food Services subcommittee requested a detailed accounting for the roughly $8 million the College pays yearly to Food Services. Months later, Frank J. Weissbecker, director of Food Services, sent the group a one-page letter, which most student members found an inadequate answer to their request. The students believed they needed precise financial data to arrive at decisions on the breakfast plan, the closing of the Union to upperclassmen, and the method of sending freshmen to the Houses for occasional meals.

"We literally begged Weissbecker," Joseph F. Savage, Jr. '78, says. "But he said he can't make up an accurate budget letter. His reason is that he's understaffed and can't work up a reasonable budget. I think that's baloney."

In order to force Weissbecker to give CHUL complete data, Savage plans to propose a radically changed meal plan he admits "hasn't got a prayer at the November CHUL meeting. He says he views the plan only as a catalyst, an idea that will challenge Food Services to financially justify its own existence.

Savage's plan, which he adds is completely open to alteration, is to have each undergraduate pay a board fee sufficient only to cover the fixed overhead costs of running the House Dining halls--administrative costs, dining hall maintenance and equipment costs, etc. He estimates this fee comes to only about $700 per year. Beyond this fee, students would pay by the meal.

Meals would be priced at cost, Savage says. Because overhead costs will have been paid for, Savage estimates the cost of a meal would be very low, cheaper than comparable meals purchased at a restaurant.

Savage defends his plan against the charge that it would weaken House life by encouraging students to eat meals off-campus. "The only reason that House life would be destroyed is because Food Services can't provide food that's attractive enough to compete against food purchased in the Square that would cost three times as much. If Food Services can't make a meal that people will want to eat, then they should get out of there."

Under his plan, Savage says, a dining hall manager at a House whose residents refused to eat the food would be replaced. "It'll put accountability into the Food Services budget," he says.