Although students from PBHA and HAND were included in the search process for the new assistant dean, when Kidd was selected, many protested that their input was disregarded. Although they insisted that their anger was not directed toward Kidd herself but toward the search process, students at PBHA had overwhelmingly supported Johnson for the job.

A rally which brought hundreds of students to the John Harvard statue on December 7 vented student and faculty anger but did not sway Lewis or Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol, who heads the newly-created student-faculty committee on public service.

At that rally, faculty and students said they had no real voice in the search process.

"If several hundred...exceptional students are distressed by decisions made in the past year by the administration, an administration that is truly proud of those exceptional students should listen to them," Adams House Master Robert J. Kiely '60 said to students' applause.

Both Skocpol and Lewis have repeatedly insisted that student input was seriously considered in the search process.

A New PBHA Board?

PBHA is an independent, nonprofit corporation, autonomous from the University. However, Harvard pays the salaries of its 10 staff members, making it awkward when the University's and PBHA's interests conflict.

"The question is: Do we move to a situation where we are less dependent on the University for staff support?" Ehrlich asked last month. "It is my...opinion that being dependent on the University for staff support is a somewhat impossible situation."

"I don't believe that Harvard College doesn't care about public service," Ehrlich continued. "I believe Dean Lewis cares about it, and I believe Dean Kidd cares about it. But my sense...is that they have a very different view. They see public service very much as a student service, as opposed to both a student service and a community service."

Last week, PBHA took a large step toward becoming more independent from the University.

Members of the PBHA Association Committee, which plays an advisory role at PBH, met with PBHA staff and its student board to "formulate some type of a board that includes all of the major stakeholders," Johnson said.

The stakeholders, according to Johnson, are the students, the clients they serve in the community, the donors, the alumni, the Harvard administration and the Harvard faculty.

The new board, according to Ehrlich, would create "a situation where the programming changes being made by students now will continue to be made by students," but with "a level of accountability through a Board of Trustees."

"I think the one Achilles' heel of PBHA is that we have student turnover every two years," said Lisa D. Graustein '97, programming cochair, adding that the new board would provide continuity to the PBHA governance.

PBHA's Association Committee does not have the power that the proposed board would, since it is not in PBHA's bylaws, has not legal standing and can't raise money for itself, Ehrlich said this week.