News
HMS Is Facing a Deficit. Under Trump, Some Fear It May Get Worse.
News
Cambridge Police Respond to Three Armed Robberies Over Holiday Weekend
News
What’s Next for Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Initiative?
News
MassDOT Adds Unpopular Train Layover to Allston I-90 Project in Sudden Reversal
News
Denied Winter Campus Housing, International Students Scramble to Find Alternative Options
President Bunting has suggested that two or three members of the Radcliffe Administration join the Student Government Association as voting members. Her proposal was incorporated into a tentative list of constitutional changes offered by the SGA reorganization committee at a meeting yesterday.
"On nearly every issue I see coming up in the future, the students want to reach a reasonable decision and consider the Administration's point of view," she explained. "Our interests are parallel, not divergent. All of us who are concerned with the College's problems should get together to work them out."
In the past, she pointed out, there has been a problem of communication between the Administration and the students. Under her proposal, representatives of the Administration would be able to express their attitudes and offer information to a wider segment of the undergraduates than is now possible.
"I have a fundamental confidence in the students'--and the Administration's--ability to make good decisions," she said. "But democracy depends on good information and the present set-up doesn't provide it."
President Bunting suggested herself and Frances R. Brown, Dean of Residence and Student Affairs, for two of the Administration representatives.
"I think it's terrible that undergraduates and College officials have never reached an agreement as to who has jurisdiction over what areas," President Bunting declared. In an effort to clarify the situation, she will meet later this week with Dean Brown and Emily R. Otis '62 and Patience Byram '62, president and vice-president of the SGA.
As an example of decisions which must be left up to the Administration, she cited safety measures, such as those concerned with fire. Students, however, should have a clear and final responsibility for regulating "quiet hours" in dormitories, she said.
"The question of sign-out rules and the hours students have to be in dorms is an area of mutual concern," she noted. "The Administration may once have had full authority over this, but I would prefer not to."
President Bunting indicated that she would be willing to delegate greater powers to an SGA which included College officials than to one which did not. But she emphasized that whether or not members of the Administration join the governing body, the SGA should feel free to offer recommendations on any topic connected with running the College.
"I honestly think students will take more interest in an SGA which functions directly as a President's advisory committee with powers of its own," she commented. "When students see that their welfare is really at stake, they will become involved."
Among the constitutional revisions outlined by the reorganization committee is limiting the Executive Board to four members (president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer) who would not, as they have done in the past, discuss policy. Instead they would be restricted to purely administrative tasks.
The two National Student Association delegates would no longer be members of the Executive Board, nor would the chairman of the nominating committee, which would replace the office of College electoral chairman.
The Board of Hall Presidents, formerly a rule-making body, would function only as a judiciary committee, fixing punishments for infractions of College rules. The sophomore and junior class committees might be replaced by a committee in charge of special events
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.