New Committee to Set Up Faculty Council Elections

Dean Ford has appointed a five-man Faculty committee to arrange election procedures for the new Faculty Council, approved last month.

The Faculty Council-proposed by the Fainsod Report-will replace the Committee on Educational Policy and serve as a combined dean's cabinet and steering committee for the Faculty.

The Faculty voted earlier this year to use a "proportional representation" election system for the council. They rejected the Fainsod Committee's recommendation that the dean of the Faculty appoint the members of the council with elections only if the Faculty were not satisfied with the dean's choices.

The Faculty will elect 18 of its members to serve on the council-which already includes Ford as chairman and Harvey Brooks, dean of Engineering and Applied Physics, as vice-chairman.

Following Fainsod

Christopher Sims, assistant professor of Economics and a member of the five-man committee, said the committee will devise a system of proportional representation that will work within the Fainsod Committee's restrictions.

The Fainsod Committee recommended that Faculty Council membership be divided equally among the Faculty's three areas-Humanities. Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences-and that members serve three-year terms.

Proportional representation systems generally require that a candidate receive only a certain fraction of the votes-less than a majority-in order to be elected.

The committee will be chaired by Kenneth J. Arrow, professor of Economics, who first proposed the proportional representation system. The other members of the committee are Sims; Andrew M.Gleason, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and a member of the conservative Faculty caucus: Michael L. Walzer, professor of Government and leader of the liberal Faculty caucus; and Charles Maier, assistant professor of History.