"The College needs to respect the integrity of the Board's decision-making," he said. "The dean of the college needs to let the assistant dean and the Board do what's best programmatically."
As a former leader of the cause of PBHA's independence, Ehrlich said he understood the concerns of those student leaders who voted against the compromise.
But, he said, this agreement will be good for the organization on balance.
"I am extremely sympathetic to the desire of student leaders to maintain PBHA as a student-led, community-oriented organization," he said. "I've been through years of fighting for that. But I think that this agreement preserves the character of the organization."
"The students need to accept that Harvard may not be an inherently malevolent force," Ehrlich added.
On to the Next Level?
Bahat said the discussions about the future of PBHA revealed a shared goal among all those involved: bringing the organization to the "next level."
"One thing that emerged from the discussions is that everyone on both sides of this vote feels pretty much the same way about where PBH needs to go," Bahat said.
That "next level," Bahat said, entails providing individual program leaders with the financial, safety and administrative support so they can focus their energies elsewhere.
Ehrlich is confident that the "next level" can be attained, with the Board having been made permanent.
"When this generation is gone," he said, "I have a lot of faith in the trustees' being effective advocates for the organization."