Some political alliances are born out of necessity.
But Undergraduate Council presidential candidate Spenser R. Goodman ’14 and UC vice-presidential candidate Darren C. McLeod ’14 have been friends since before freshman year.
Before they even formally matriculated to the College, they were scrubbing bathrooms for Dorm Crew. Later that year, they would be working side-by-side as freshman UC representatives.
Now, the pair is teaming up again, this time in a bid to run the student government organization that they joined together two years ago.
“It was never about the title,” Goodman says, describing his ambition to fill the top role. “Since day one of freshman year, this is what we’ve been working towards and what we’ve been working on. This is a chance for us to take what we’ve done and what we want to do and make real, lasting changes for the school and for the UC.”
Their platform is concise and, in some ways, strikingly bold.
Goodman and McLeod focus on three goals to bolster a higher objective of expanding social life on campus: reforming the UC’s social programs committee, restructuring the UC’s committee system, and encouraging administrators to change social life policy.
But Goodman emphasizes that these changes to campus life would expand beyond “dancing and parties,” adding that he and McLeod would work to promote sporting events, concerts, talks, and plays.
“We have a different vision for the direction that the Undergraduate Council should be going,” he says.
“The other three tickets are all very similar. If you took their names off of their platforms, they would be the exact same, and no one would be able to identify any differences. They are all on one side, and we are on the other.”
THE PLATFORM
For Goodman, it’s all about the specifics. Goodman says that social life at Harvard is not—but should be—the highest priority for the UC.
In drawing up their platform, Goodman and McLeod say that he deliberately tried to choose achievable reforms to the governing body.
“We are really committed to seeing a change in social life here at Harvard,” Goodman says.
Goodman and McLeod see the Social Programs Committee as the primary vehicle for this change.
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