CRR Referendums Surprise Faculty

Some best-laid plans have gone astray.

The new student election procedures to the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR)-which, committee chairman Donald G. Anderson said three weeks ago, were "guaranteed to produce students"-have failed. No Harvard or Radcliffe House will send a representative to the CRR.

When the convoluted election procedures-a lottery with the frills of electoral methods-were proposed last December, most administrators and Faculty members were sure they would produce student delegates with minimum embarrassment.

Asked what would happen if every House refused to send a delegate, one high administration official replied, "I don't know, but between you and me, I hardly think there's a chance of that happening."

The new procedures would thus avoid the situations of last Fall, when last year's freshmen refused to select a delegate, Dudley House elected one pledged to oppose the Committee, and Quincy House, after a series of vacillations, finally decided to send one.

The new election procedures call for a lottery in each House to select an 11-member panel, which would then choose two or fewer of its members as nominees to enter a grand pool. If it preferred, students in the House could elect nominees from the list of the 11 panel members. Four names would then be chosen at random from the pool of nominees of all the Houses. They would be the student delegates to the CRR.

Certainly, it seemed a sure bet that four out of 12 possible constituencies-the ten Harvard Houses, the Harvard freshmen and Radcliffe could not have more than one representative each-would send in a nominee.

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But referendums-some, like the one at Mather, specifically against the new election procedures; some, like those at Eliot and South House, against the presently-constituted CRR; others, like those at Lowell and Adams, against any CRR-blocked the formation of 11-member panels.

And in the Houses where panels were formed-Leverett and Dudley-the panels took the option of sending no delegates.

Under the election procedures drafted by an administration-faculty-student committee and approved by the Faculty last January, the three current studentdelegates to the CRR would serve until tomorrow.

Tomorrow the chairman of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life was to pick the names of the four student delegates out of a hat.

However, because there are no nominees, the drawing will not take place. And since the procedures stated that the old representatives would continue serving until the first CHUL meeting in March, when now ones would be selected, the next step is unclear.

The Faculty Council, which meets tomorrow, could ask the three student delegates to continue to serve. However, two of the three have already said they would refuse to do so.

It could just as easily let the students leave. The CRR does not need students to operate.

At its Wednesday meeting the Faculty Council may also choose a replacement for David Holmstrum, one of the two graduate student delegates, who left Harvard this term. The graduate students' terms expire June 30.

Perhaps the student vote of no-confidence will bring the CRR question back into the forum of Faculty discussion. Perhaps new election procedures will be devised. Perhaps the CRR will be redefined. But the CRR in the past has aroused little Faculty interest, and so far, no Faculty member is known to be planning such action