The Undergraduate Council's Student Affairs Committee (SAC), which advocates changes in College policy, on Monday night elected Diana L. Adair '98 committee chair and Noah Freeman '98-'99 as vice-chair.

Newly elected council members also chose Robert S. Schwartz '00 as chair and Chuck A. Truesdell '99 as vice-chair of the council's Finance Committee, which distributes grants to student groups.

"Hopefully, the U.C. can continue to grow in its role as voicing what students want to change here at Harvard," Adair said.

Adair, who was a council representative last year, is the founder of Girl Spot and of the resource center of the Bisexual Gay Lesbian and Transgendered Supporters Association (BGLTSA).

"My agenda for the Student Affairs Committee is to make full use of the opportunity we have as students to serve on [student-faculty] committees," Adair added.

In her platform, Adair advocated a committee that will divide into task forces to tackle and become experts on several important issues.

Her own priorities include Faculty diversity; gender identity and the addition of "transgendered" students to the University non-discrimination clause; a multi-cultural student center, Administrative Board reform; and Core Curriculum reform.

"What I feel about the U.C. is that legislation can only do so much," Adair said. She emphasized the need for U.C. members to meet with and lobby members of the Administration in order to vocalize student concerns.

Benjamin W. Hulse '99 and Noah Z. Seton '00 also ran for the position of chair. Last spring the Faculty voted changes in the Core, but Hulse said he believed those changes were insufficient. In addition, he said that Adair's proposed task forces might weaken the power of the committee chair.

"On the one hand I am worried that we may not follow-up on the Core as aggressively as we did last semester," Hulse added. "On the other hand I think the quantity of legislation coming out of the committee last year may have been diminished by our monomania about the Core."

Several council members said that the election of both Adair and Schwartz represents a liberal inclination on the council.

"[This election] certainly shows where the majority of the council members stand in regards to [Council President Lamelle D. Rawlins '99] and her agenda," Seton said.

"Just because you're on the minority on the Council doesn't mean you can't get things done," Seton added.

Conflict of Interest?

Several council members said yesterday that Rawlins had shown strong support for Schwartz, and criticized that support as inappropriate because Rawlins also monitors the council committee elections. Rawlins, however, denied that she had formally endorsed Schwartz.