“Supposedly you make decisions about next year’s study groups, but really it’s just the people who work at the IOP who determine the fellows,” he says. “ I wouldn’t consider it a student-run organization.”
Shoshana M. Lew ’05 says that while the staffers connected students with otherwise unreachable speakers during her work on the IOP’s civics committee, their presence also “limits the extent to which students, particularly those who are only becoming involved in the IOP, can get a foothold in the organization’s leadership structure.”
Ganesh N. Sitaraman ’04, a member of SAC who is also a Crimson editor, says that the process of selecting fellows is open to students from interviewing stages and onwards, and that it is more effective to have the staff handling more of the logistics.
While Pryor’s unilateral SAC reorganization highlighted the fundamental lack of authority facing student leaders of a University-controlled organization, Tucker says that one of the major improvements that followed Pryor’s reforms was the move to institutionalize student input in the IOP.
A steering committee that includes three students and three staffers—including Glickman—now oversees many aspects of the institute.
“No action like that Sen. Pryor took could be taken without steering committee input,” Tucker says.
The selection of Glickman as director, which came last April, saw more undergraduate input than ever before, Tucker adds.
No More Revolution
Warren says the changes in the works will come slowly but surely after a year in which the IOP was still “cleaning up and moving forward.”
“Nobody really wants another quasi-revolution,” he says. “People don’t want to be dramatic about it.”
Former SAC president Robert F. McCarthy ’02, who was the first president elected under the new system, and is now working for the Democratic Party in New Hampshire, says the IOP sets high standards for itself and is constantly trying to meet them.
“In our generation politics is not cool,” he says. “So to get students, especially Harvard ones, to commit themselves to public service is a lofty goal.”
And Glickman is enthusiastic about meeting that goal this year, by finding a place where “the interface of politics with policy” attracts students who like both the style and the substance of politics.
“We have a responsibility to reach out continuously,” he says. “If we do that we’ll have a really good year.”
—Staff writer Sarah M. Seltzer can be reached sseltzer@fas.harvard.edu
—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached theodore@fas.harvard.edu.