The Convention Looks at the Core

The following article was written by William A. Groll '80, Maxine S. Pfeffer '81 and Daniel M. Berman '79, all of whom are members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education, and delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Recent event have led students here at Harvard to re-evaluate student government. The Constitutional Convention arose to address the problem of ineffectiveness of the standing student-faculty committees in expressing student opinion on salient University issues.

At the onset it was believed that the fault must lie with the students who were serving as representatives on those committees; that they, in fact, must not be representative of their constituencies. This belief is no longer widely held.

Where, then, does the problem lie? The problem lies with the structure of student input here. Too few student representatives, with limited resources, have been granted the right to sit on standing committees that have limited power. The Committee on Undergraduate Education has the "power" to recommend changes to the Faculty Council, which can simply reject those recommendations with no further recourse.

In effect, students are being paid lip service regarding their role in University policy; the faculty and administration possess ultimate control of all policy decisions.

Recent examples of these events have exemplified this split between supposed input and actual effect. The student caucus of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL), for example, last month recommended a proclamation of support for the cause behind and work done by the Constitutional Convention, a proclamation that could have been just the impetus needed to ensure the success of the Convention's efforts.

The faculty/administration response to the recommendation was to decline to consider it, citing a lack of information about the convention. Don't these people read The Crimson? Surely The Crimson's extensive coverage of the convention could have provided them with the needed information, had they only followed it. Instead, we were left with a unanimous endorcement from the student caucus, virtually nothing compared to what the caucus's efforts could have brought.

The core curriculum has been another area where faculty/administration control has squelched student input. Last year, the Educational Resources Group published what Francis M. Pipkin, Baird Professor of Science and former associate dean of the Faculty, described as a "well thought out and coherent response to the report of the Task Force on the Core Curriculum." The response made some very valid objections to the task force's proposal.

It was decided that more work was needed on the proposal. Perhaps, it seemed, students were finally being given input. However, when the new committee was set up to work on a new proposal, there was no provision for student input. Why, if students had shown themselves capable of raising valid points, were they left out?

This year, when the new proposal was released, ERG and CUE again made valid objections, many of which are described below. Once again, however, student attempts at input seem to be to no avail.

Let us now briefly go through some of our objections to the core proposal as it stands:

Expository Writing: The core proposal calls for Expos as a 33rd half course required for graduation. This half course would be attached to another core course, but with the full workload of the present Expos. The proposal also allows for a possible credit exemption from Expos.

We oppose adding another course to students' requirements; no student should be required to take five Harvard courses in one semester. We also oppose the proposal for credit exemption for Expos.

This idea would set a highly undesirable precedent of giving single credit for studies done before coming to Harvard. This exemption, based on the absurb notion of a writing assignment during the already hectic freshman week, also gives an unreasonable advantage to "prepared" students.

Bypass: The core proposal allows for no departmental bypasses (except for non-science concentrating pre-meds) of basic core courses outside one's general field. We contend that it is possible for a student to gain the appropriate "habits of thought" through sequences of departmental courses that could be approved by the core committees. Such bypasses would also reduce the size of the inevitably large core classes.

In addition, students would have greater leeway in experiencing higher level courses than allowed for in the limited number of electives students will face under the proposal. Students also could, in this way, fill core requirements with various desired full courses. Furthermore, this type of bypass would provide the equivalent of second exemptions for interdisciplinary concentrators, who now only have one.

Pass/Fail: There is no option for taking core requirements pass/fail under the current proposal. We propose that a student be allowed a total of two semesters pass/fail, not within the same core area. To be left without any pass/fail option is inconceivable.

Student Participation: Lastly, the core proposal totally neglects student participation on the core committees. It was bad enough that we were left out of the writing of the proposal itself. We feel that students would make significant contributions to these committees and, therefore, should be given appropriate participation.

All of these recommendations have been sent to the Faculty Council; all have met with very unfavorable responses. The council seems set on continuing its insensitivity to student attitudes.

Our experience with CUE strengthens our conviction of the need for independent student government at Harvard. The new student assembly will not assume the responsibilities of the existing student caucuses of the standing student-faculty committees. It will not detract from the limited input students now have; it can only increase the effectiveness of that student input in determining University policies.

The Constitutional Convention has worked for the organization of a new and different form of student government. We would here like to describe a few of the changes and advances that will stem from our efforts.

Probably the single most important concept that the convention has dealt with is representation. The new student government simply must be representative of student opinion to effectively portray them and help shape University policy.

The small number of students serving on the standing committees found it impossible to hope to effectively represent their constituencies. This problem has been resolved in the new assembly by shrinking the size of individual constituencies to 75 students, and thus raising considerably the number of student representatives.

Many methods were discussed extensively regarding the ensurance of minority group and viewpoint representation. The convention has, by building such representative guarantees into the framework of the assembly, taken a very big step in assuring the effectiveness of the assembly in representing entire student opinion.

Various minority groups have been guaranteed full-voting seats in the assembly, in addition to any seats won in the general elections. The election process itself has been designed to enhance minority viewpoint representation.

In sum, a conscious effort has been made to safeguard the assembly from the eventuality of its "lapsing into a vacuum," from the lack of accountability of its representatives to their constituent opinions.

The proposed student assembly will also be a unified, central representative body. At every turn, the convention has developed constraints to prevent the new body from becoming House or district segmented. For example, representatives that are elected from within the Houses will cast votes in the assembly individually, not as a proportion of their House's vote.

This unification, we hope, will add a new dimension to undergraduate life, a cohesive Harvard-Radcliffe undergraduate body, without destroying the advantages of the exsiting House communities.

Another step which we felt important to the effectiveness of the assembly was the minimizations of the powers of the officers. There will be no "President of the Harvard-Radcliffe Student Body." The offices of Chairman, Vice-chairman, Secretary and Treasurer will be positions held for a period of one semester with largely administrative duties.

Probably the most important change that the new assembly will affect on the Harvard-Radcliffe community is the increase in the scope of issues students will have a structured voice on.

The representative assembly we set up, deriving its legitimacy solely from the students, believing strongly in students' right and ability to offer valid constructive criticism, will work to "further the quality of Harvard-Radcliffe undergraduate education as well as serving to accurately represent the view of the undergraduate body to other members of the University community, and to effectively coordinate student activities."

What has all this been getting at? University politics seem still be to geared to the old adage that a student is only here for four years, while faculty and administration members are here nearly ten times that, and Harvard is here "forever."

Students may only be here for four years; nevertheless, they are still an intergral part of the University. Faculty, administration, and students--past, present, and future--are distinct but inseparable parts of the one Harvard-Radcliffe community.

We contend that until this inseparability is recognized, until students are no longer treated merely as consumers of educational services, until students stop getting lip service concerning their involvement on University policy, there is a continued need for more and better student organization and government.