Seymour Sees HCUA Power At New High

The Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs "probably achieved its maximum position and prestige" during the past year, Chairman R. Thomas Seymour '64 said in his annual report.

The report, to be distributed at tonight's HCUA meeting, pictures 1963 as a year marked by "the solidification of the Council's position in the Harvard community." "We have taken our place of leadership in the community, and have exercised that leadership both responsibly and well," Seymour said.

He conceded that "we may not be as effective as we should be at times," but said "the potential is there for us to do as big a job as we can." No other student government organization in the United States "approaches the scope, let alone the effectiveness," of the HCUA, he claimed.

Seymour warned the Council that it would "naturally encounter more than a little apathy" because of "the temper" of the Harvard community. But he added that he welcomed such apathy as a reflection of "the strange and wonderful way our community operates."

"The Congress of the United States and many state legislatures suffer considerably more apathy than we do, and their operations are certainly not meaningfully hindered in any sense," he observed.

Claiming that the Council's opinion rarely differed from that of a majority of students, he suggested that much criticism of the HCUA stemmed "from its very real effectiveness and representativeness." The Council makes it "much more difficult for other organizations to control student opinion," he added.

The Council's relations with the Administration were "extraordinarily good" in 1963, according to the report. Seymour repeatedly praised the University's "frankness, cooperation, and friendliness," and said that "with very few exceptions the members of the Administration are as receptive to questions and new ideas and as helpful as one could possibly ask."

"The major deviation" from a smooth relationship came when the University announced the system of uniform room rents before an HCUA committee finished a report on the subject. Seymour noted, however, that the Council had received "a prompt and full apology from the Deans involved."