Since 1994, the Undergraduate Council’s annual Springfest has been a student affair—planned, funded and attended by students.

But this year’s festival on the Mac Quad will be a bit different.

University President Lawrence H. Summers announced at a Feb. 10 council meeting that the his office intends to co-sponsor the event this spring.

Summers’ announcement was universally applauded by council members, grateful for the additional funding they assumed Mass. Hall would provide.

But as the April 27 event draws near, it is still unclear what the council has gained by enlisting Summers to help out with the event.

Council President Sujean S. Lee ’03 says Summers’ office has not explicitly pledged to contribute a set amount of money to the event.

“Since we are working together on the project I think it’s understood that they will work with us financially. It’s sort of been suggested,” Lee says. “In the end this will be a joint event.”

University spokesperson Joe Wrinn refuses to discuss the finances of the event, saying it is too early in the planning process.

Yet despite the expectation of funding from Summers’ office, Lee says the council has budgeted $20,000 for the event—only half as much as was spent in 2000, when swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy headlined.

Summers says his sponsorship of this student event will replace his hosting of another—the annual first-year President’s Dance, traditionally held in Annenberg Hall.

“Don’t expect a President’s Dance,” Summers says. “Everybody does things their own way. I think I will over time, starting with the Springfest, try to have a suitable set of student events with which I am engaged.”

In addition, the president’s office has made it clear to the council that one condition of University sponsorship of Springfest is that the event be open to the entire Harvard community, including Faculty, staff and their families.

While council members say the more, the merrier, it is still unclear how the event will be made family-friendly and still meet students’ expectations for what is one of the College’s biggest social event of the year.

Band-Aid?