Committee to Seek Council Enlargement

The Student Council Re-evaluation Committee will propose tonight that the Council be enlarged by the election of a junior and a sophomore by their classmates in each House, and by the appointment of one student by each Housemaster, the CRIMSON learned last night.

Including freshmen, it appears that the reorganized Council would consist of 30 representatives. The organization now includes a representative from each House and from each upper class, plus three freshmen and a Council-appointed representative, a total of 15.

The Committee, which has been compiling its report since November, declared that "the present Council is organizationally unsound; we do not feel that it really represents the student body." A "basic need for a student representative body" was asserted, however.

Appointment of a member by each Housemaster, originally advocated in a CRIMSON editorial, was designed by the committee as a potential "item of prestige." The report emphasized the likelihood that students of "popularly unrecognized talent" might thus achieve membership. Appointed members would be ineligible for Council offices.

Council Not to Overlap

Further Committee proposals call for the Council to serve as a "general service group--without overlapping with present service organization, and as a "student pressure group." It would provide "a ready organization, with regular mechanisms for lobbying, and sustained contacts."

"The Student Council is not a legislative body," the report asserted, adding that "it has no sanction to order anyone to do anything." Effective channeling of student opinion was termed an "acknowledged need."

No activites should be undertaken by the Council unless it feels they have a "good possibility of success," the Committee advised.

The Council will begin discussion of the report tonight at an open meeting in Phillips Brooks House at 7 p.m. The far-reaching changes proposed might take the from of amendments to the present Council constitution, or of a wholly new constitution. Any such changes would have to be approved by the student body.