Councils' Clinic

Student Councils, God knows, have a tough time. Their constituents held them responsible for everything from free beer to fund collections, yet they usually have little control over such problems. Any move that could help the bedevilled councils would be a good thing.

About a year ago, the National Student Association came up with what looked like a good thing. It was a Student Council Clinic. The idea was that since most student governments come up against similar problems, a lot could be learned from inter-council discussions. One council could profit from another's experience in an atmosphere unfettered by formality or Mr. Roberts' ubiquitous rules.

It was obvious that if these clinics were to be effective they would need the broadest participation possible. That meant that while NSA could sponsor the clinics and see that they got organized, once the clinics started, they would have to include non-NSA schools and would have to be independent of the sponsoring organization.

There have been four clinics so far--called Great or Boston Student Government Conferences--and it looks like the student government people are going to need a clinic on how to run a clinic. The NSA people, despite their pious protestations, are acting suspiciously as though they want to make the Greater Boston Group a subcommission of the NSA. This would eliminate those schools who do not want to become part of an NSA subcommission. At the same time, such a move would do little except gratify some NSA people who like to make noises like politicians.

On the other hand, the non-NSA schools haven't been out polishing their halos. They sponsored a constitution--really so informal that it is termed merely an "agreement"--that gave larege but undefined powers to the presiding officers of the conference. These schools have also been deliberately vague about the functions of the conference, changing it from a discussion group to a problem-solving body. They have been helped in this last maneuver because NSA is not nearly so well organized on the local level as it is on the regional and national levels. But it would be absurd for NSA schools like Harvard to pay dues to a local organization that is not only unintegrated into the NSA on the larger levels, but might actually be in conflict with it. If the Greater Boston conference tries to be more than a discussion and idea exchange group, then it is doomed to failure.

A clinic can still be helpful. But if either the NSA partisans or their opposition has its way, we had better forget the whole thing.