If they should win, Maats and Fox say they would try to eradicate the council of the stodginess that they have avoided in their campaign.

Maats, wearing a blue seersucker suit and pink bow tie, stood out in a line of candidates in business suits at last night’s debate.

“We intend to clear voter apathy with a sense of humor,” Maats says.

Teaching the Institution

The primary focus of the Maats-Fox campaign is to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching at Harvard.

Maats, who was born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Brazil, Greece, New York and England, and attended the famed Eton, says one of the reasons he opted for the American college system was freer exchange between students and professors.

Maats says that while he loves Harvard, he has not found professors as receptive to student input as he had hoped.

“Basically, Harvard sucks as a teaching institution,” Fox says.

Maats and Fox say tenure decisions are too heavily based on a professor’s research projects and public image and not enough on the professor’s relationship with students.

“It has to be realized that some people can teach, some people can research and some people can do both,” Maats says. “The major flaw in the tenure process is that it doesn’t factor in teaching ability as a criterion.”

Maats says his experience as a biochemistry concentrator has led him to see a need for reform of the tenure process.

“I have been exposed to some of the worst teaching on campus,” Maats says.

Maats says the questions about teaching quality that he posed to University President Lawrence H. Summers at a Mather House study break last year were loudly applauded by other science concentrators there.

Maats and Fox say they would use the council to challenge the administration to be more careful in hiring, firing and tenuring.

They also advocate for student input in tenure decisions.