The authors of the Undergraduate Council bill which requests student representation on the Administrative Board held a preliminary meeting yesterday with Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 and Secretary of the Administrative Board Virginia L. Mackay-Smith '78.

Meanwhile, Lewis released a statement this week affirming the College's commitment to freedom of the press, but warning that membership in a news organization does not exempt students from the community's standards of conduct.

Both students and administrators called yesterday's meeting productive, and said it should serve as a starting point for future talks.

"[Lewis] was very conciliatory. He wants to demystify the Ad Board, and that would help a lot," said Sozi T. Sozinho '97, who is not a council member but co-authored the bill.

In an e-mail to The Crimson Lewis termed the meeting a "frank and friendly discussion," but wrote, "I have yet to hear clearly what the problem is to which appointing students members to the Ad Board would be the solution."

Students said the Ad Board's mandate is too broad in certain cases, and that they would like to have representation to ensure fair decisions.

The demand comes in wake of the Ad Board's decision to place William L. Kirtley '97 on disciplinary probation for making a prank telephone call for a story in The Crimson's weekly magazine, Fifteen Minutes.

Kirtley has said that he was disciplined for what is termed in the Ad Board's user guide as "inappropriate social behavior.

College officials do not comment on specific Ad Board cases.

"The reason we need to have students on the Ad Board is that if we are going to apply the socially unacceptable idea, we need to have voices from the entire community," said Thomas J. Kelleher '99, also an author of the bill.

But Mackay-Smith said the members of the Ad Board believe the Faculty has given them very little leeway, and they must "reflect community standards."

After yesterday's meeting, students said they wanted to give the issue further consideration before bringing it to the council.

Thanks to an agreement last year with Lewis, the council has the option of asking the dean to "sign" or "veto" any bill as a gesture of support. But students said they wanted to give Lewis input on the bill before it was sent to the Student Affairs Committee.

"There is no point in passing a bill just for him to veto it," said council Parliamentarian and co-author Justin E. Jones '97.

One issue discussed in the meeting was the usefulness of the Student-Faculty Judiciary Board as an alternative to the Ad Board in disciplinary cases, according to Mackay-Smith.

Created in 1987, the judiciary board can be invoked at the student's discretion in "precedent setting cases," Mackay-Smith said.

But students said the judiciary board is a poor alternative as a disciplinary body because of its obscurity and lack of jurisdiction.

"Most students have never heard of it," Jones said. "It has only decided one case in the past nine years."

Affirmation

On Wednesday, Lewis released a letter to the community affirming the College's committment to free speech.

But the letter cautioned that members of the student press are not exempt from the rules the rest of the student body has to follow.

"Conduct that would ordinarily be unacceptable in this community is not rendered less problematic because it occurred while a member of the press was gathering information for an article or broadcast," the statement reads