The UC voted for a replacement vice president at an emergency meeting held four days after Nichols’ resignation where tensions ran high from the aftereffects of his departure.
Although several UC members had expressed interest in the post only a few days earlier, only Capp and UC veteran and contrarian Jason L. Lurie ’05 accepted nominations.
The close vote of 22-20 in Capp’s favor surprised many members, including Capp himself.
Had he been elected, Lurie would have ended his term at Commencement, leaving Glazer solely in charge of the planning for next year over the summer.
“A vote for Lurie is a vote against the institution [of the UC]” said Capp after the election.
Lurie said he garnered such a large number of votes because of the UC’s discomfort with Nichols’ resignation.
Several UC members said that the former UC President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 and former Vice President Michael R. Blickstead ’05 had contacted them via e-mail and endorsed Capp. Blickstead said he also tried to discourage people from running against Capp.
The clashing of political alliances related to Nichols’ resignation and Capp’s election led to a contentious and tense atmosphere as the UC attempted to squeeze its reform package and curricular review reports into emergency meetings held during reading period.
“There was more political infighting than we’ve seen in the past. It got potentially out of hand at the end of the year because there were certainly personal feelings that were hurt,” says former Campus Life Committee Chair Christina L. Adams ’06.
But Adams says she predicts that the bickering will have died down by next year, as the UC is already moving on.
“Despite the problems that arose from the split ticket we still had an incredibly successful semester,” said Glazer.
And with a new UC policy, passed with overwhelming support at a May meeting, that makes a split ticket election impossible, the likelihood of a similar situation seems slim.
Glazer says that split tickets can succeed, even though his did not.
“Yes, it could have worked,” he says. “As Ian said to the council, he didn’t make the council his number one priority, and that really prevented it from working.”
Former UC President Lamelle Rawlins Ryman ’99, the only other president elected without her running mate, says that she and the vice president worked well together.
“At least for us, our personalities worked well together, so we were able to be really flexible,” Ryman says. “We became a good team.”
But Einkauf says that split tickets are a barrier to efficiency, and that Glazer and Nichols “were handicapped by the student body which elected them.”
—Staff writer Liz C. Goodwin can be reached at goodwin@fas.harvard.edu.