The latest attempt at establishing viable student government at a university where for years it has failed has several new facets. But one quality makes the year-old Undergraduate Council different from its many and varied predecessors; it has money.

The bulk of the $58,000 collected from a voluntary $10 term bill fee which 83 percent of students chose to pay were to funding undergraduate student organizations.

The result council and student group leaders agree, has been a much needed infusion of cash into undergraduate life

The council this year gave 74 grants to organizations ranging from the Harvard-Radcliffe Group for Architecture Exploration to the Go game club to the Friends of the Spartacus Youth League.

The council's grants committee adopted a set of guidelines in February to evaluate grant applications. The guidelines required a budget outline, sisted that the organizations solicit funds from other sources, and encouraged sponsorship of activities that benefit the Harvard community as a whole.

The group said it would fund "educational" activities, but not those "designed to elicit support for religious ideologies [to] promote membership in sectarian groups."

The committee this spring established an early February applications deadline but set aside some funds for emergency applications throughout the semester. The grants that received committee approval came before the full council for approval. The council rejected only one grants committee recommendation.

While some council members have complained that they do not have enough information to act on committee recommendations, most seem satisfied with the majority of grants work being done in committee.

However, several questions have been raised about the manner in which the money was distributed, particularly the value of the time-consuming "emergency" grants process.

Some argue that holding a certain amount of money for the emergency grants throughout the semester has resulted in the rejection of worthwhile one-time grants in favor of sometimes less stellar requests.

"Unfortunately, we had to cut some groups initially," says grants committee member Kelly L. Klegar '85. "They reapplied [as emergency applications] and were accepted. I'm not sure what to do about it."

Council Treasurer Peter N. Smith '83, who has been given much of the credit for developing the grants process, suggests that next year's council set two deadlines per semester and limit post-deadline funding to new organizations or for "more strictly defined" emergencies.

One example of a real emergency grant, Smith says, was the $391.17 awarded to the Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society in late March. The car being used by the club for a trip to an Ontario debate broke down and had to be repaired at a cost of $1000, says club president Anthony J. DiNovi. Though the car's owner paid about $700, DiNovi says the added cost would have ruined the team's chances of going to a major tournament in Chicago.

With the council's emergency money, the debate Society was once again able to make the trip, where the Harvard squad captured a national championship for themselves, DiNovi says.

DiNovi says that while he is grateful for the council bail-out, he echoes the call of many when he calls for change in the way the council gives out grants: "The council should fund the general operating budgets for several organizations instead of funding weird causes."