But even a temporary spot for students in the University's administrative infrastructure is not enough to sufficiently democratize the oligarchy that governs this University. Student representatives--one for undergraduates and one for graduate students--should have a permanent place on the Corporation, following the lead of public universities across the country that place students on their board of trustees or, at the very least, allow them to attend board meetings. The same should be true of the College's Administrative Board, the panel of Harvard deans and senior tutors charged with disciplining undergraduates. Unlike the disciplinary committees at Yale, Princeton, Duke, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania and Williams (to name just a few other schools), Harvard's ad board includes no student representatives.

To be sure, some Harvard search committees have included students in their ranks--House residents help choose new masters, three undergraduates helped select the new assistant dean of the College, David P. Illingworth '71, and many academic departments (including my own) invite student participation through advisory committees. But such solicitation of student opinion is inconsistent at best, and severely unrepresentative at worst. When students were selected to sit on the board of the Ann Radcliffe Trust, they were hand-picked by administrators, not selected from an open pool. Students, however picked, must be incorporated when planning the long-term future of this community. Every student deserves five minutes of the administration's time, and Harvard would be better off for giving it.

Georgia N. Alexakis '00, a government concentrator in Winthrop House, was managing editor of The Crimson in 1999.