Elizabeth A. Haynes '98 resigned at last night's Undergraduate Council meeting from her post as chair of the council's Student Affairs Committee, citing personal and political attacks against her by other committee members.

Haynes will remain on the council as a member of the Campus Life Committee.

Student Affairs Committee Vice-Chair Ian T. Simmons '98 will act as interim chair until the committee elects a new chair at tomorrow's meeting.

"The reason I joined the council and the Student Affairs Committee is no longer relevant to myself or students," Haynes said in her resignation speech to the council. "The Student Affairs Committee is working against what I see as the only way to make changes in student life."

Haynes said a number of events lead up to her decision to resign, but one of the immediate causes was a controversy at last week's executive board meeting.

According to one executive board member, questions were raised at the meeting about another Student Affairs Committee member's usurping of Haynes's authority to run committee meetings.

That Student Affairs Committee member admitted he was wrong to have done so, but went on to criticize Haynes for not living up to her promises to serve primarily to facilitate the ideas of others on the committee.

That member also said the majority of the committee differed from Haynes on a number of issues and intimated that a change was in order, though he was not specific about what kind of change was needed.

Haynes said this and other incidents made her dread council and committee meetings, leading her to resign.

Haynes said she could no longer be the head of a committee whose members took actions that destroyed ties between the committee and the administration.

"The committee wants to go out of its way to agitate and annoy the administration," Haynes said. "I believe the administration wants to work with us as equals and has set up committees to give us a voice.

"When we go out of our way to agitate and annoy the administration," Haynes said. "I believe the administration wants to work with us as equals and has set up committees to give us a voice."

"When we go out of our way to agitate and annoy them, we are not treating ourselves as equals, we're treating ourselves as inferiors. I don't want to be chair of that committee," she added.

Haynes also said she was the victim of personal attacks against her objectivity and effectiveness in leading the Student Affairs Committee.

The attacks ranged from her personal views of how the committee should act to allegations that she lied in committee and council meetings to her relationship with another council member outside of the council, she said.

According to Noah R. Freeman '98, a member of the Student Affairs Committee and of the Progressive Undergraduate Council Coalition (PUCC), members of the committee felt Haynes was in the minority on most decisions in the committee this year and used her position to give more attention to the minority view than it warranted.