This Year's Coop Candidates Wage Eye-Catching Campaigns

Students from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have shown a resurgence of interest in the annual elections for the Coop's Board of Directors this year.

Thirty students--eight more than last year--are running for election this month, and some are running highly visible campaigns.

Students other than board-selected nominees must file petitions with at least 100 signatures in order to qualify as ballot nominees. In this year's election 19 students have submitted petitions.

Charles Wu '79, who has put up "Who is Wu?" signs around campus as a way of countering the anonymity of the election process, said yesterday he thinks the posters will help him in the election.

Campaign costs, Wu said yesterday, have so far amounted to "a good night at Father's Six--and I'm certainly not getting federally matching funds."

Vote This Number

David N. Mallenbaum '79, whose campaign posters around campus say, "Don't Dial 383717-6, vote for it. It's not just another pretty Coop number," said he had heard several students suggestions for improving the Coop. Mallenbaum said the suggestions included an increase in rebates, more record sales and a greater emphasis on Radcliffe, as opposed to Harvard, insignias on merchandise.

Darcy Bradbury '78, another petition candidate, said yesterday that she is not campaigning because she is "not sure if advertising hurts or helps. Some people say it's obnoxious. But I guess since there are so many candidates this year, some have decided to campaign."

David Sand, a first-year Business School student, sees the job as "an ongoing business, with the same kinds of problems as any business organization. It would be a good experience for me," he said yesterday.

Sand said that his campaign "cost nothing, took 20 minutes to do, and caught everyone's attention at the Business School."

Before class, Sand slipped into rooms and sprawled his campaign message onto all the blackboards immediately beneath the top boards. When professors elevated the top board, Sand's campaign slogan emerged before students' eyes.

Bradbury said yesterday that some students think the Coop position may help them gain admission to graduate school. "If you're going to business school, it's evidence of interest or managerial experience."

Bradbury, who said yesterday that the pricing in the drugs-cosmetics and clothes departments at the Coop are significantly high, added "You have to assume that the Coop isn't ripping you off on purpose, but I'd like to know the reasons for the high prices."

Wu said yesterday he doubted the Coop's statements that its book and record prices are the "lowest possible."

As a student," Wu said yesterday, "I'm just as eager as everyone to see if they're charging us fairly."

The Coop Board of Directors, which is composed of 11 students and 11 alumni and faculty members of Harvard and MIT and a president, is a group which governs the Coop and determines the amount of rebate to be distributed to Coop members