CORRECTION APPENDED

The Ad Board Review Committee held an open forum last night as part of a process began last year that will culminate in a report of recommendations for reforming the Ad Board.

The majority of the approximately 15 students at the meeting in the Eliot House Junior Common Room were Undergraduate Council members. [CORRECTION BELOW]

The composition of the Ad Board—the body responsible for enforcing social and academic conduct in the College—was one of the major issues of the forum. The body is currently made up of 35 members of the faculty and administrators.

UC President Matthew L. Sundquist ’09, the only student on the College’s review committee, said part of the mystery surrounding the Ad Board comes from the fact there is no student representation.

UC Vice President Randall S. Sarafa ’09 echoed this idea, saying that any reform must include students representation on the Ad Board. Concern was also raised that resident deans voting alongside their superiors might be less willing to fight for a student’s cause.
 
Resident deans serve as the primary voice for any student in their House who has to appear for the board, regardless of their point of view on the issue, and they still have a vote on any case they defend.

The size of the Ad Board also came under scrutiny. Many in attendance agreed that a body with fewer members would make a difference to students appearing before the Ad Board. Participants also discussed whether the Ad Board should remain educational in nature or would be more effective as a judicial body.

The students who did come to the meeting brought with them stories of friends who had appeared before the Ad Board. From these anecdotes came concerns over a rule that requires that students leave campus immediately once they are told they must withdraw, preventing them from seeking mental health counseling at University Health Services.

Last November, then-Interim Dean of the College David R. Pilbeam announced that he had convened a committee to consider reforms of the Ad Board. Committee members were named in January.

Two months later, while the group was on what was called a “little hiatus,” Sundquist was selected to serve as the committee’s only student representative—though the College had explicitly rejected the idea of undergraduate participation for several months.

The UC had hoped to have a voice in the process, forming an Ad Hoc Ad Board Committee. But Donald H. Pfister, chair of the Ad Board Review Committee and a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, told Sundquist at the time that he was not willing to consider the Council’s input on the issue.

Pfister said last night that he hopes the group’s report will be ready by December. The forum last night follows two similar meetings that were held last semester.
—Staff writer Chelsea L. Shover can be reached at clshover@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION
The Oct. 17 article “UC, Students Discuss Ad Board Reform” mischaracterized the attendance of the forum. Only about one-third, not a majority, of the students who attended the event were members of the Undergraduate Council.