Some students are pessimistic about the effectiveness of a student government association. The best argument I have heard is "What if the association loses wide support and a small faction misrepresents student opinion and distorts the association's purpose?"

While one cannot deny this possibility in any representative body, its likelihood can be reduced by setting up constitutional safeguards. One such safeguard is that unlike very small, autonomous committees, the new assembly will have one representative for every 75 students--that is, 85 separate voices. Since every undergraduate will be a member of the association, eligible to vote for members to the assembly, no student may be denied speaking rights in the assembly. There may also be provisions for periodic "town meetings" in the Houses, as well as the power of initiative and referendums on important issues.

Another argument is that "the status quo is adequate." If it were, how could I cite so many obvious problems that students are powerless to address without a central voice? Why, even at schools with decision-making based on a student-faculty committee system, would there still exist an umbrella organization to maintain student unity and provide student services? One thing is certain: a student association will not make things any worse.

If students here are apathetic, it is not because they are uninterested--it is because there is no organization by which to pursue student interests. Nobody has an incentive to work for anyone but themselves. The Harvard of the '70s has become a vegetable garden, turning unwitting achievers into little one-men corporations. We operate under the profit motive to maximize future profits and minimize current risk.

It is this state of vegetation, such a contrast from the '60s, that demands a Constitutional Convention. As Pericles told his public-minded Athenians 2500 years ago:

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

Together, the students, faculty and workers at Harvard form a community: a community of which we 6400 are the vital center, not just customers of corporate Harvard, dashing off $7000 checks on our way to the library. One senior, who also happened to have been "prepared" at a private school in England, suggested that in every case the administration knows how best to prepare us for our future roles as society's elite. "The student's only responsibility and only right is to accomplish his studies," he said.

That left me incredulous. Such a mindset only "prepares" one to unquestioningly take up the work of the multinational corporation--with no social responsibility. Such an attitude allows you to practice law with no concern for justice, or to pay your taxes and mow your suburban lawn with no concern for your life as part of a community. The Harvard that educated social and political reformers like Adams, Thoreau, FDR and Nader is getting its old veins clogged with rampant pre-professionalism. Harvard itself is not beyond reform; we all know our lives and educations here could be better.

At stake here is not merely better student representation on antiquated and stagnated committees perspiring the status quo. The real issue is this: Do the students have the intelligence and the determination to make Harvard a greater institution, a better college and a more responsible actor in society? I really think we do--we only have to overcome our own selfishness.

It is easy to be blinded by pre-professionalism, at least for three weeks every January and May. But in between times neither books nor overloaded social circuits should keep us from giving some thought to improving this place. If you do nothing else this semester, read the constitution all the House committees have joined together to write. It will not in itself solve any of our problems--that part will be up to you.

Michael A. Calabrese '79 is chairman of the Harvard-Radcliffe Constitutional Convention. A Government and Economics concentrator living in Leverett House, he is also a Crimson editor.