The Council's Year

When Student Council members meet next Monday in PBH for the last meeting of the 1954-55 term, they will be able to look back on an outstanding record. Their administration, characterized by harmony and responsibility, is a clear contrast to the Council stereotype--resulting from past ineptness--of an aimless group of petty politicians, unawake to undergraduate interests, weak in dealing with the administration, and ineffective in student affairs. Members of the incoming Council and of future Councils may well use the past year as an example of what we hope will be a continued effort to make the Council a strong and intelligent force in College affairs.

Much criticism of the Council traditionally comes from a misunderstanding of the group's role in the University. Some would have it ape the overzealous student governments of other colleges. Such conceptions of the Council's mission at Harvard are unjustified. Ideally the Council acts as a liaison group between faculty and students, serving the student body, and publicly representing it.

In these functions the present Council has been competent because it has understood its role, worked well internally, and taken a cooperative, reasoned approach to the faculty. It has recognized faculty viewpoints without yielding to domination, and has effectively presented student opinion to the administration.

The accomplishments resulting from this approach are impressive. The Council convinced the administration--with Lamont's own figures--that the undergraduate library should retain a schedule of extended hours during exam period. It obtained a salary raise for most of the students employed at the University through the Student Employment Office. The Council placed its own scholarship funds in the hands of the Scholarship Committee in order to insure fair distribution. Its ticket plan was substantially adopted by the Department of Athletics. The Combined Charities Drive is now ready to operate at greater efficiency than ever before. A German exchange student is again at the University this year because of funds collected in the Drive.

The Council did not confine itself entirely to College matters, but also expressed undergraduate feeling to the public. Its action in such affairs was characterized by promptness and decisiveness. When AFROTC candidates were denied their commissions and when the government threatened a reduction in the Fulbright program, the Council quickly spoke up.

Although at times the group was thwarted in worthwhile aims, it tried to make the best of unfortunate situations. For instance, when their Junior Year Abroad recommendations were turned down by the faculty, Council members went in turn to each department in a vain attempt to resurrect it.

In a year characterized by activity and responsibility, the Council members made some mistakes, to be sure. Their slowness and vacillation about the class committees elections led to confusion; they turned down a needed election system revision. They blundered worst in their handling of the faculty's Advanced Standing decisions. Several weeks after the program had been approved and had been widely publicized and explained both in newspapers and over the air, the Council charged that undergraduates did not know enough about the plan. It interviewed the administration officials, and then turned in a one-page report "for undergraduate information" which ambiguously explained all over again what had already been fully and clearly stated. To climax its mishandling of the issue, the Council dropped its potentially valuable committee on Advanced Standing in the year preceeding the program's establishment.

The Council's credits, nevertheless, far outweigh these few debits. Its sense of responsibility, inner harmony, and reasoned approach to problems should be constant guideposts for the incoming Council.