Council Votes to Reject Panel's Report on HSA

In a tense meeting marked by sharp debate and occasional bitterness, the Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs last night refused to approve the report of its executive committee on the Harvard Student Agencies and its activities.

A motion to approve the report appeared at first to have passed by a 6-6 vote, with HCUA Chairman R. Thomas Seymour '64 voting to break the tie in favor of approval. But then Winthrop House representative Marc A. Slotnick '64 dramatically changed his vote, and the motion failed, 7-5.

The Council had earlier defeated a motion to send the report to a new committee for revision and further investigation. That motion was killed when Seymour voted "No" to break another 6-6 tie.

Opponents of the report questioned its scope and its conclusions and attacked the HSA for its refusal to release information about the percentage of needy students in its employ and price markups on goods it sells.

Michal J.M. Galazka '63-4 of Quincy House blasted the HCUA committee's recommendation that the HSA conduct a public relations campaign to improve its image. "What is needed is not public relations," he said. "What is needed is honesty, frank and full disclosure."

Dunster's Joseph M. Russin '64 deplored a recommendation that the posts of General Manager of the HSA and Director of Student Employment, now held by Dustin M. Burke '52, be given to two different people in order to "assuage" anti-HSA feeling the committee said was "largely unjustified."

"It is ridiculous and unfair to Mr. Burke to take away one of his jobs merely as a public relations move," Russin said. Russin also said the report should have included sections on the quality and prices of HSA services, the number of needy students involved, and the HSA's effect on other Harvard organizations.

The vote was regarded as a defeat for Seymour, who was presiding over his last meeting as Chairman. Seymour voted against the compromise motion, proposed by Reed Ellis '65 and Russin, which would have returned the report to committee.

Seymour Mildly Critical

Seymour said that the HSA "doesn't have the right conception of how the University works." But he said the report was as complete as could be expected in view of the HSA's "secretiveness."

In another move, the HCUA remanded to committee the report of its Committee on Freshman Parietals, which had recommended giving proctors the right to grant individual suites permissions for midnight parietals on Saturday nights.

Russin pointed out that the report cites polls showing that freshmen support across-the-board extensions of parietals, while proctors oppose them. "If after that the committee sides with the proctors, it better have damn good reasons," Russin said.