The newly elected chair of the Undergraduate Council's Student Affairs Committee, a member of the progressive slate, may be a more vocal advocate of student concerns than the last chair, council members said.

The new chair, Marco B. Simons '97, was chosen in an uncontested election Tuesday night to replace Elizabeth A. Haynes '98, who resigned Sunday citing personal and political attacks against her by other committee members.

Although some members continued to express regret at Haynes' resignation and the personal attacks which prompted it, many hailed Simons, who is a Progressive Undergraduate Council Coalition delegate and two-year council member, as a leader who will be a more vigorous representative of the committee's views.

Pointing to the activist reform approach which a large part of the council has adopted this semester, committee members said Simons' leadership style and philosophy is more in tune with the committee's sentiments than Haynes' were.

"A lot of people had trouble with Liz because they felt that she was an apologist for the administration," Robert Wolinsky '98-'97 said. "I don't think that Marco is an apologist for anybody and I think he'll take our concerns to the administration and help us deal with them."

Wolinsky said much of the animosity towards Haynes stemmed from what he called her unwillingness or inability to communicate the strength of the committee's opinions to the Administration.

"The UC has a lot of activist ideas this year and we would like to see the concerns of the students addressed," he said. "Many felt she tended a little too much to go along with the faculty."

E. Michelle Drake '97 said Simons will be a better leader.

"I think Marco as a chair is more in line with my views than Liz was, both in terms of our relationship with the administration and in terms of the types of issues we should be pursuing," Drake said.

"He has an excellent leadership style. He'll do a good job in ideological leadership of the committee, and in doing the kind of things that a chair has to do: representing the views of the council in the faculty committees that he will sit on," she added.

Secretary council Lamelle Rawlins '98 said," [Simons] has been a vocal member of the U.C. from the beginning, and an organizer, and a contact person."

"When people have questions, they go to Marco," she said.

Despite the favorable welcome Simons has received as chair, committee members also expressed dismay at the circumstances surrounding Haynes' resignation.

At Sunday's council meeting, Haynes charged that "the Student Affairs Committee is working against what I see as the only way to make changes in student life."

She also said that attacks, including some on her personal relationship with another council member, have made her dread reading her e-mail, listening to her answering machine and attending council meetings.

Eric M. Nelson '98 said that attacks like these are not the first to take place on the council this year, and that many members are fed up--particularly members of the Freshman Caucus.

"I am very sorry that Liz is going to be stepping down and am extremely discouraged by the inappropriate and childish debate that's been flying around on e-mail and on the council floor," Nelson said in an interview prior to Tuesday's election.

"This is not the first time this has happened," he said. "We left common decency months ago in the way people are talking to each other."

"A lot of us, especially freshmen, are quite fed up with it," he added.

Wolinsky, however, said although it was unfortunate that Haynes felt personally attacked, it was more of a philosophical difference between members than it was a personal difference.

"It was more that there was frustration with trying to get differing philosophies to mix and produce the results we wanted," Wolinsky said.

In an interview last night, Haynes acknowledged that she had philosophical differences with other committee members, but said she did not think they should have had an effect on her position as chair of the committee.

"I didn't run on any sort of philosophy besides being able to look at both sides of an issue, take whatever is decided by the committee and present it to the administration in the best way that I know how in order to make it beneficial for both students and faculty," she said. "My personal feelings are completely irrelevant to how good of a chair I can be."

Simons said he is optimistic that the transition will go smoothly.

"I think losing Liz is a tremendous loss to the committee, but I think the committee is going to basically continue in the direction it's been going," Simons said.

"The committee is going to have to work out some issues on its own--efficiency of time, how our meetings are run, who has the authority to do what, that sort of thing--but we've gotten a lot of good resolutions through, and we're going to continue to get a lot of good resolutions through," he added.

The chair of the Student Affairs Committee acts as the liaison between the college administration and the student government