Absentee Voices

Despite all the fuss this fall about students giving input to Harvard's governing boards, there is one group of trustees on campus, Radcliffe's, which permits students to listen in and contribute to debate. Although the three representatives from the Radcliffe Union of Students can't vote, they certainly can make their cases heard--when they want to, that is.

At last week's meeting on divestment policy, only one of the three student reps--Gina Cattalini '87--showed up to contribute to Radcliffe's divestment dialogue. The other two, Dahlia Weinman '87 and Ann Geiger '87 didn't. Seems one had an exam and the other was ill.

RUS has sent delegates to the board since the group's founding about 20 years ago. Cattalini says she believes RUS' greatest function is in "helping [the trustees] know what students are thinking about."

The Classy Professor

Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Public Administration Richard E. Neustadt has a distaste for the phrase, "I'm only a freshman." Just ask Thomas S. Rubin '90, who described himself in those very words to the venerable professor.

In a show of solidarity with his youngest students, Neustadt fired off personal invitations to the 15 frosh enrolled in Government 1560, "The American Presidency." Arriving at his Cambridge apartment around tea-time, the guests "talked a lot about the course and about Neustadt's life," says Rubin. "It was very informal, very nice."

Around dinner time the students sent out for pizza--"We all contributed, but Neustadt contributed the largest chunk," Rubin recalls.

Partisan Politics

Mather House resident Kris W. Kobach '88 won a second term as president of the Republican Club in elections held last week. Other new officers include Vice President L. Ellen Cox '89, Secretary Timothy A. Rea '90, and Treasurer Amy C. Smith '88.

Kobach says the club has already challenged the Democratic Club and Perspective magazine's staff to debates this spring. In addition, the club plans a trip to Washington over spring break to meet Cabinet members. The conservative campus organization is also preparing an issue of The Alternative, a Republican student journal founded last year.

But Kobach adds that club activities won't include campaigning for candidates in local municipal elections. "Republicans in Boston aren't like Republicans anywhere else. First of all, there aren't any, and second, they always lose," says Kobach.

Invasion of Moors Thwarted

Curiousity nearly killed the cat when a North House resident decided to check out his room in Moors Hall, the Quad dorm closed for renovations. The student, who wished to remain anonymous, got in through a third-floor window from the top of a breezeway that connects Moors to an adjacent building. Inspection completed, he tried to walk out the front door.

An interior pair of double doors closed and locked behind him. He found the outside pair of doors padlocked from the outside. And only the construction crew, due to arrive at 7 a.m., had the keys.