And although Branch no longer holds an official position with MSA, she is holding a general interest meeting tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall 303. She hopes the organization will elect new officers and run discussion events.

Still, for all of Branch's dreams, Raman says MSA must face some harsh realities.

Like the Harvard Foundation's SAC committee, MSA--at least theoretically--includes one representative from every campus ethnic group. But the Foundation has more money than MSA, and so students turn there.

"It's always the dollar," Raman says. "They have it and we don't."

Branch maintains that the MSA's role should be to provide dialogue between campus groups, but since her departure, another minority discussion group, independent of the MSA, has sprung up on campus.

Raman says his group should stick to what, in the recent past, it has done best: planning one big, community-wide event per semester.

This strategy worked two years ago, Raman says, when students filled Sanders Theatre to hear a star-studded faculty panel debate affirmative action. Last November, a forum on the effects of randomization, co-sponsored with Diversity & Distinction magazine, also proved popular.