Still struggling for members and leadership after laying dormant for nearly a year, the Minority Student Alliance (MSA) is trying once again to revitalize itself.

The group, which serves as an ethnic umbrella organization working in the shadow of the Harvard Foundation, traditionally has had trouble finding leaders. Only three students applied to the group last spring, and none wanted to be co-chair.

Now MSA has no official leaders at all. Former co-chair Ethel B. Branch '01 resigned last fall, and the term of the co-chair she left behind, Sujit M. Raman '00, has since expired. With no one to take over the group, Raman now describes himself as the sole co-chair "by default."

He says the group's declining campus presence can be attributed to a number of factors: a lack of funding, a lack of interest and competition from other ethnic groups for committed members.

A shift in scope has hurt as well. Raman says the group was founded over a decade ago as a more radical version of the Harvard Foundation, but the group today may not be radical enough to attract new members.

"It's harder to form a group consciousness among the minority population at Harvard because there are so many competing interests," he says.

Now, after almost a year away from the group, Branch says she wants to "get the ball rolling."

She plans to organize a group of students to hand out pamphlets in front of the Science Center Thursday, a national day of action for affirmative action supporters. She is also planning an affirmative-action discussion for Thursday, at 8 p.m., tentatively scheduled to be in the Mather House Junior Common Room.