Heather C. Chang '99, this year's only returning Asian-American woman council member and leader of the Pforzheimer House delegation, said that she has mixed feelings about the election results.

"I was very encouraged by the number of Asian Americans, although unfortunately the number of women elected is still low," Chang said.

According to Chang and other council members, the problem lies less in getting women to run for office than in getting them elected.

Price, who is African-American, said this year's council is much more diverse.

"I think it's what we're looking for in terms of having a council more representative of the student body," Price said.

Lillian J. Epstein '00, a returning council member now in Leverett House, participated in the council's recruiting efforts.

"We conducted outreaches to the student groups, to promote women candidates and inform students about U.C. initiatives to push for more women and minority hiring," she said.

Many of the female candidates said they based the decision to run on these conversations with other female council members.

Kathleen M. Douglas '99, Dunster House delegation leader, was a last-minute addition to the list of candidates.

"After speaking with Lamelle and looking at the candidates, I realized that the people running definitely did not represent the campus as a whole," she said.

"I wanted to run to balance the scales, to get women, minorities, gays, lesbians and others heard on campus," Douglas added.

Aside from the continuing gender gap, election commission co-chair and returning council member Benjamin W. Hulse '99 said he was pleased with the overall enthusiasm level in this year's election.

"I think it looks like a terrific group, perhaps the strongest ever," Hulse said. "We have a large number of people returning-something like 33 returning members, up from about 20 last year-which will give us a lot of institutional memory."

Hulse said that the high voter turnout was also encouraging, especially in the Eliot, Mather and Yard races.

Fourteen of the 17 districts were "competitive"-the races there had more candidates than seats. In those districts voter turnout averaged 34 percent of students. Competitive upperclass houses, however, only saw an average voter turnout of 23 percent.