Benjamin O. Shuldiner '99 wanted to ask President Neil L. Rudenstine one more question before he graduated.

"What, if anything, can this University offer students to become more enfranchised?" Shuldiner asked during the open question period of yesterday's full Faculty meeting.

Rudenstine reciprocated with one last lecture.

"I understand the frustration of students. You're here for four years. We're here for 400," Rudenstine said.

Shuldiner attends Faculty meetings as a representative of the Undergraduate Council and is also a member of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM). In his remarks, he admitted that a student protest of March's Faculty meeting might have been "deleterious," but he said students need a greater voice in the governance of the University.

"I feel honored that I am able to speak with my tie and my button-up shirt," he told the Faculty.

"[But] our voice hasn't really been heard. I wish that maybe students could be enfranchised within the system, so that we do not have to be 400 strong outside chanting and drowning you out," he said.

Rudenstine responded by noting the Faculty would have to decide for itself if it wanted to open more of its committees' doors to students.

Then, Rudenstine asked Shuldiner if the president could be frank with him.

Demonstrations, Rudenstine said after Shuldiner urged him to continue, are not always constructive on issues about which the University is already engaged in direct communication with students.

He noted that University lawyers were already meeting with members of the PSLM when March's rally took place, and an inter-faculty task force is currently looking at the Living Wage Campaign's requests.

"It's sort of hard, honestly, to have it both ways," Rudenstine said. "Once [the discussion] channel is open, its a little odd to see other channels be opened in ways that can actually be disruptive."

Rudenstine's comments come one week after Living Wage Campaign supporters presented a letter endorsed by more than 100 faculty members to the administration and as the campaign threatens to stage demonstrations at Commencement.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse also rose during the open question period to ask about the administration's responsiveness to student voices.

Wisse asked whether the University planned to reexamine its policy towards excluding the Reserved Officer Training Corps (ROTC) from campus, in light of recent Undergraduate Council debate on the topic.