Student government at Harvard is now in a state of flux. The new Student Assembly, created by the constitution that students ratified last spring, met last week and passed a resolution to support the Nestle's boycott. Four days later, the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) also voted to recommend a boycott, with little mention of the Student Assembly vote.

This lack of communication between the groups is an indication of the uncertainty among members of both groups as to how CHUL and the assembly will interact. CHUL is protecting its turf; the Student Assembly is trying to win some power of its own. Everybody's a little nervous.

Ironically, the student-faculty committees -- mainly CHUL and the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) -- which many Student Assembly representatives claim to be unrepresentative, were seen by students just a decade ago as a remedy, not a cause, for the students' lack of influence.

At that time, the Harvard Undergraduate Council (HUC), the '60s equivalent of the Student Assembly, disbanded itself, contending that the University ignored the group. In its place, the University formed the student-faculty committees, hoping that if students and faculty members could sit down and talk with each other, problems could be solved.

At first, CHUL and CUE seemed to work. Students gained more influence. The issues that went before the groups sparked interest, and the novelty of the committees raised hopes that things would really be different.

But the faculty had a majority on the committees, and they used it. The high hopes were dashed. Pressing issues such as sexual integration of the Houses and the presence of ROTC on campus began to vanish.

Apathy started to afflict students. They lost their interest in CHUL and CUE, and consequently their influence in those bodies diminished. After a decade, CHUL and CUE earned reputations as do-nothing, gratuitous committees that the administration used to appease students.

But during the past two years enough fiery issues have erupted to pull students' heads out of their books. For these students, the student-faculty committees are no longer suitable forums for resolving issues of conflict.

When two students last year tried to initiate a convention to write a constitution for a new student government, House committees eagerly sent delegates. One month later, after a lot of work, the Student Assembly emerged like a phoenix from the ashes of the HUC.

In the meantime, administrators and House masters have grown quite fond of the student-faculty committees, especially CHUL. CHUL has become a sort of clearinghouse for various gripes, grievances and administrative problems. Virtually everyone who influences the administration of non-academic policies is present at CHUL meetings, or is supposed to be.

To be sure, students are also present at the meetings. But with only 15 students representing their 6400 classmates, many legitimate student gripes are lost in the shuffle.

The infrequency and short length of CHUL meetings contributes to the problem. In addition, the executive committee, composed mainly of administrators, controls the agenda. As a result, CHUL has become a committee which serves the administration more than the students. Students sit on the committees, but they are outnumbered and do not run the meetings. Usually either Dean Fox or Dean Rosovsky serves as chairman, and, consciously or unconsciously, they tend to disfavor the students on the committees, student CHUL members claim.

Furthermore, the student members on CHUL change annually while the Faculty members and administrators remain the same. Consequently, their terms end just as students begin to understand the workings of CHUL and the potential for student influence in that body.

The CHUL subcommittees involve smaller groups, and students have an easier job influencing the considerable amount of work the subcommittees do. Overall, however, CHUL is dominated by faculty members and administrators.

In response to this domination, the CHUL student members united to form the Student Caucus, which was designed to help students gain more control. But the Student Caucus has not had much effect. It usually meets sometime before the full CHUL meeting or the executive committee meeting, but often the caucus meetings are poorly attended.