*The social committee, which might include all House committee chairmen as ex-officio members, would plan campus-wide activities such as concerts, dances, happy hours, and booze cruises.
*The executive committee, which would include the chairmen of the other committees and the officers of the assembly, would be responsible for a newsletter, agendas, and budgeting. It would also review grant applications from student organizations, which would have to be approved by a majority vote of the full assembly. The Dowling Committee has not considered whether the new government's officers would be elected by students at large, or by the assembly itself as they are now.
No matter how different the structure of the new assembly might be from the current one, the track record of student government during the past four years will undoubtedly be a major issue in the debate over the Dowling Committee's final recommendations. A statement prefacing the Student Assembly's constitution, ratified by students in 1977, promised that the assembly would "handle important student concerns like alternative meal plans, library hours and reserve policy, athletic facilities and tennis court fees, calendar reform, housing transfers, bland menus which also make it nearly impossible for vegetarians and some religious groups to maintain their diet, funding for new student groups, and much more." Thus far, the assembly has not produced a substantive change in any one of these areas. Instead, it has sponsored social events such as disco dances, happy hours, a rock concert, and a "spring weekend."
Students on advisory committees have been just as ineffective at achieving reforms. Despite polls showing that the majority of students opposed the Core Curriculum, students on CUE and the Core subcommittees did not oppose the Core. And despite polls showing that students favor calendar reform, longer library hours and alternative meal plans, CHUL has made no progress in any of these areas. Student members of CHUL say they have felt particularly impotent this year in controversies over kiosk and registration-packet regulations.
Some of the failures of student government stem from problems the infighting of student political groups. In its early years, the Student Assembly was consumed by internal bickering over the Coalition for a Democratic University (CDU), which some delegates claimed was a political party attempting to take over the assembly. This year, the assembly has been hurt by indifference--attendance is low at sub-committee meetings and quorums are rare at full meetings. Several students on CHUL say they have "panicked" under pressure from administrators at stormy meetings this fall, leading, for example, to a vote reversal in the kiosk debate.
Many of the failures of student government at Harvard, however, are caused by structural problems. Student governments at all the Ivy League colleges face three problems: student apathy, meager funding, and lack of real power. But while other schools' student governments struggle with inadequate funding, the assembly has no funding at all. While other colleges have factions in their central councils, Harvard does not even have a central council: The assembly is not fully recognized by the University and has no formal powers. And while other colleges allow their student governments limited autonomy in a few areas, such as funding student organizations, every committee on which students sit at Harvard is advisory. A report of the first intercollegiate conference in Philadelphia, at which student leaders from Stanford, the University of Chicago and all the Ivies compared their home institutions, sums up the situation. "Harvard's internal [government] structure is clearly much more complex than that of Brown or Stanford [the two other schools examined in depth in the report]. The student government wields no substantive power. Student power is instead located in a sprawling structure, spread out in organizations across the entire campus."
Student members of the Dowling Committee argue that once the structural position of the assembly improves, its membership will improve as well. The assembly now acts like a debating club, they say, because it has no more influence than a debating club. On the other hand, in the one area in which the assembly has had some autonomy--social activities--it has scored some successes. The question for students during the next year will be whether the recommendations offered, by the Dowling Committee actually offer a substantive change in the University's power structure or whether they would merely shift the names and places of a half-dozen committees.
The Dowling Committee has the power to suggest autonomy for students in areas that most directly affect their lives, such as housing lotteries, transfers and sex ratios; meal plans and menus; security and shuttle buses; and financing of student activities. It could follow the lead of other Universities, such as Cornell, by recommending that a student serve on the Corporation to represent the opinion of a substantial part of the University community in decisions on investments, tuition and budgeting. It could recommend the creation of a student judicial board and of student panels to influence tenuring and admissions policy. It could suggest a community ferendum procedure, by which a majority vote of Faculty, students and alumni would reverse a decision by the Corporation.
But as the committee's proposal now stands, students face a dilemma. They may accept the Dowling proposal or they may hold out for real power. Accepting the new student government could mean impotence, loss of energy, and more frustration--or it could mean a base to work from, better funding, and equal student-Faculty representation on several key advisory committees. In either case, the ultimate goal--student autonomy in some policy areas and effective influence in others--will endure, inside or outside student government