I DIDN'T PLAN to run for the Undergraduate Council last fall.

I didn't want to get involved with what is perceived to be one of the more inept organizations on campus. But I did want to serve on a student-faculty committee, and the council selects students from its own membership to respresnt undergraduate interests before the administration.

I tried to believe that the council gets bad press from most undergraduate publications simply because there aren't enough seats for every resume-stuffing Gov jock.

Little did I know how wrong I was.

AFTER DECLARING my candidacy, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was one of six people running for the five Adams House seats. Most candidates faced little competition. As in the past, the council extended the filing deadline last year because of a dearth of candidates in some houses.

The result was that too many people on the council were more interested in their titles than they were in fulfilling their responsibilities as representatives. These members of the council contributed little to meetings, if anything at all.

The remaining members did want to make student government work. They spoke frequently during council meetings and undertook specific projectsthat they thought would benefit the students.

These representatives actually spoke too much. They examined every point in every resolution at great length. They spent a lot of time debating unimportant details before the whole body.

Although the representatives were performing a valuable function by clarifying the resolutions, the subcommittees should have eliminated the need for explanation before they went to the main body. Had they done so, the length of council meetings could have been cut in half.

It is not surprising that most council members found the meetings boring. They got tired of hearing the same representatives ask the same questions of different proposals, meeting after meeting. To save themselves from the tedium, at least two representatives studied foreign language flash-cards, while another worked his way through Wittgenstein. Others found equally productive ways to pass the time.

When the council tried to negotiate with the administration about a serious issue, such as reforming the academic calendar, both the administration and the council felt compelled to survey undergraduates to know what they thought about the proposal. If the council believed that it was a truly representative body, then it would not have needed to survey its constituents. They could have held an open forum instead.

If the administration had believed that the council represented student interests, they might have dealt more seriously with the student government's proposals. For instance, the council could have demanded, and received, a place in the Presidential search.

Nonetheless, the council can claim limited successes: the UC-PBH book sale, calendar reform, and the Yale Game cookout.

The people responsible for these projects are those who serve on student-faculty committees. But undergraduate representatives have no real power to make changes in the University system. They can only try to persuade the administration, and it is almost impossible to convince bureaucrats to change what they have always done. Remember the controversy surrounding the addition of the hamburger option to the dining halls?

MY EXPERIENCE being an UC representative has shown me that the council has a choice: it can continue in its bumbling tradition--its actions dissuading talented students from serving on it--or it can restructure itself in order to maximize what little power it has.