But Subramanian acknowledges that the council has few services to show after one semester. "In order for student services to work you have to sit down and work out the details," he says. "Things that are more concrete take longer to achieve. I think it's unfair to judge the council on one semester."

Nonetheless, some representatives say Subramanian's position as a non-presidential chair has hurt the council's effectiveness in fulfilling its service-oriented agenda.

"I think a little more push could not have hurt," says Outzs, one of Subramanian's rivals for the council leadership last fall. "It was a new council. If we had had a presidential chair perhaps some projects could have been pushed through. Students could have really gotten on the ball."

Subramanian grew up in Hockessin, Del. and attended a private boarding school, where he was active in student government. But he says he wanted to study mathematics until spring semester of his junior year in high school, which he spent working for U.S. Rep. Tom Carper (D-Del.) The experience, he says, gave him the idea that people could make a difference in the realm of politics--an idea which he says he has tried to apply to the council.

"[I would like] to send it in the direction where people are feeling they're part of the U.C., to make it really feel like the U.C. person is there to serve students," he says.

First-year roommates, however, can trace this desire back to his early days on the both the Undergraduate and Roomie Councils. Subramanian, says Eugene D. Stern '91-'92, is obsessed with his council jobs.

"He's very, very involved in his political doings," says Stern. "He takes it all very seriously. He worries a lot about it. He's very committed, very serious, very earnest."

"He was always thinking up things," Stern continues. "He's often thought up grandiose schemes. Sometimes he gets ideas and he gets very very excited about them. He would always be thinking about `well, the U.C. should do this' and `the U.C. should do that.' When I was living with him I knew more about the U.C. than probably most U.C. members."

And Subramanian maintains that his deliberate, contemplative style is what is needed to make the council effective as a student government.

And although the council has little actual power, Subramanian says he feels that it is gaining respectability with the administration.

"We're thinking through ideas, we're following through proposals," he says. "The more of these kinds of ideas we bring out [the more] our credit rating with the administration improves."