Just as he proposed in his February 8 inaugural address, Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 has spent his first semester on the job racking up notable successes as a student advocate and social planner.

But with one of most crucial inaugural promises, Mahan has overtly failed.

“I don’t want to be a front-page president,” he declared at the end of his speech, after pledging not to force any of his seven just-proposed council reforms through the 53-member body. “I welcome productive dissent and thoughtful alternatives,” he added. “We must strive to build a common vision or else we are in for a long and frustrating semester.”

By Mahan’s standard, it has been a long and frustrating semester.

Far from keeping the council unified, Mahan has spent much of his first semester as president dealing with heated opposition on numerous facets of the various issues the council has dealt with. Though nearly every piece of council legislation has been approved overwhelmingly, council meetings have been repeatedly marked by shouting and lost tempers—from the front of the room as well as Mahan’s angry opponents in the back.

Former council member and one-time presidential candidate Joshua A. Barro ’04 says the council’s constant bickering led him to resign his council seat last month. Barro resigned after the student body voted in support of the council’s termbill fee increase, which he had strongly opposed.

“My time on the council this semester, I was fighting with people a lot,” says Barro. “I felt happier once I was no longer on the council.”

The council has become prone to discontent, in large part because of Mahan’s oligarchic style of leadership. While his popular predecessor Rohit Chopra ’04 largely led behind the scenes, building relationships with top College administrators and securing support for council legislation before entering Sever 113 for the council’s Sunday evening meetings, Mahan has worked closely with a small circle of council allies, at the expense of his support among the rest of the council. The creation of his so-called “cabinet,” for example, helped effect Mahan’s stated goal of crafting a more professional council—but brought with it a more professional, ruthless opposition.

As a politician aspiring to be viewed as a strong leader, Mahan has publicly overseen many of the council’s major legislative efforts this semester, far more than Chopra ever did. But while Mahan’s public stances on controversial proposals—from the Student Activities Fee increase to a campus women’s center—have tended to garner the council’s votes, they come at the expense of the body’s prestige.

MAHAN’S OVAL OFFICE

The same inaugural speech in which Mahan called for a termbill fee hike contained a list of four new positions he wanted to create in the council. Aside from the constitutionally mandated secretary and treasurer, and the already-existing parliamentarian and First-Year Social Committee liaison, Mahan decided to create a press secretary, a City of Cambridge liaison, a student organization liaison and a sustainability liaison.

“Where Rohit tried to do everything himself, Matt is much more willing to let other people step in,” council representative Aaron D. Chadbourne ’06 says. “He’s been willing to hand responsibility over to Justin [R. Chapa ’05] in a lot of different ways in order to free himself up and maintain his own sanity.”

Chapa, a Mahan confidante whom the new president appointed press secretary at the council’s second meeting of the semester, has shown both the benefits and the risks of operating a council through the efforts of a few “White House” staffers. As press secretary, Chapa has issued the occasional press release and has coordinated the council’s efforts to communicate with undergraduates at large over House e-mail lists. At the same time, however, he has generated resentment among council members for exerting influence he does not officially have.

The council passed a bill sponsored by Chapa and Vice President Michael R. Blickstead ’05 on March 21, called the Keg Return Service Act, which provided funding for the council to return students’ kegs to the Blanchard’s liquor store in Allston on a series of Sunday afternoons, starting on April 11—which happened to be the day of Easter. Blickstead wrote to UC-general, the council’s open e-mail list, on the evening of April 11, after the keg return service had not taken place, that he, Mahan and Chapa “decided that it would not be appropriate to start this service on Easter Sunday.”

While Mahan was criticized over UC-general for making an executive decision in violation of council legislation, and without notifying or consulting the council, he also had to deal with criticism for including Chapa—whose only elected position was as one of three representatives from Pforzheimer House—among the council’s executive officers.