Fits and Starts

All semester, the Student Assembly stagnated, unable to organize and unsure of its purpose. But last week, in a spurt of energy, the departing assembly raced to take action.

At a three-hour Thursday evening meeting, the assembly passed resolution after resolution: condemning next year's college cost increase, supporting reform of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, and calling for a campus-wide demonstration to protest the University's refusal to rename the Englehard Library at the Kennedy School.

On Sunday night, the assembly stage-managed a huge campus-wide event, a party at the Boston-Boston discotheque that attracted 3000 people.

And on Wednesday, an undergraduate poll taken by the assembly earlier in the year bore its first fruit--all students will receive toilet paper free next year.

It was an eventful week for the assembly--one that showed its potential strength, but also revealed the weaknesses that have plagued it all semester.

The first problem the assembly may have to tackle is its relationship to the University. Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, told assembly members Sunday they should have consulted with University officials in planning the Boston-Boston party to protect students' safety.

Assembly members said this week they do not believe they must follow Epps' guidelines because the assembly is not an officially-recognized Harvard organization.

Sarah V. Carpenter '81, an assembly delegate, said last week the assembly may soon have to seek formal recogniition. "We have had all of the priviledges of official recognition, but none of the responsibilities," Carpenter added.

Steven V. R. Winthrop '80, outgoing chairman of the assembly, announced Thursday that less than a dozen of the assembly's 96 members have been to every meeting. The assembly passed all of Thursday's resolutions without an official quorum of 50 per cent of the delegates.

The greatest challenge the assembly confronts, however, is student apathy. The Coalition for a Democratic University (CDU), the assembly's first political party, is championing broader participation in the assembly as one of the key ideas in its platform. Although Winthrop said he will not run for re-election because he hopes to become a model for non-member activism, it remains to be seen whether the assembly can generate enough widespread student support to build on its recent initiative.