Sometimes, the best way to judge people is by the books they read. So it comes as no surprise that the two books Kenneth E. Lee '89 has read for pleasure most recently were The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy and Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas '55.

Both titles are strangely appropriate to Lee's tenure as this year's chair of the Undergraduate Council. For much of the year, Lee managed to orchestrate an unprecedented degree of consensus during council members' often contentious searches for common ground.

But on a larger scale, Lee's year on the council could be described as a long ascent to power, followed by a sudden fall--arguably, the rise and fall of a great power. At least from the council's perspective.

During an interview held at the Hong Kong chinese restaurant a week before Lee's graduation day, he reflects on his role as the council's chief officer.

After sharing an order of peking raviolis with his girlfriend, S. Layla Voll '90, Lee extracts a white slip of paper from inside a fortune cookie. "'You can solve your problems if you exert yourself,'" Lee reads, adding, "That's the council motto."

Lee exerted an unprecedented degree of influence on the council this year, largely the result of his personal style. In person, Lee is very likeable, always quick with a quotable comment or one of his notoriously bad jokes.

For most of the year, Lee succeeded in shaping the council's agenda with little dissent. The council tackled issues including minority faculty hiring, the all-male final clubs and homophobia.

In keeping with his fortune cookie prediction, Lee exercised control over the council merely by exerting himself: he was the first chair to take positions on council issues and, as a result, his personal positions often set the terms of council debates.

"I think [taking a position] gives the council some direction and I think it sort of focuses the issues a little better," he says. "And besides, it makes the job a lot more fun."

But during his tenure, Lee was forced to learn that the council's situation was not always as cheery as his optimistic reflections.

"I became more aware of the potential pitfalls of the position," Lee says. "I also learned that Suzanne Vega isn't as popular as I thought she was," he adds, commenting on a council-sponsored concert which lost approximately $20,000. About the same time, a heated debate about Reserve Officers Training Corps also hindered council proceedings and tarnished Lee's image.

Although Lee says he enjoyed the job, he notes that it took much more time and commitment than he had ever expected. He estimates that he spent more than 20 hours a week at the job, much of the time devoted to unglamorous paper and leg-work.

But working hard is nothing new for Lee. The son of two Asian immigrants--his father is Malaysian, and his mother is Chinese--Lee was expected to work hard and succeed in high school. Lee describes his parents' control of him as "a combination of a lot of caring and a lot of strictness."

"They were always reminding me of what I should be doing," he says of his parents, who attended Harvard and Vassar respectively. "I had a lot of freedom and a lot of leeway to do what I wanted, but still they had to make sure that I was coming back and doing my homework, getting into a good college, going to Harvard."

Even as he prepares to graduate, Lee still maintains close ties to his family, who still live outside New Haven, Conn. Voll says that he speaks with his parents frequently by phone, and that he looks after after his younger brother, Lloyd, who this year was a freshperson living in Hurlbut.