Reassembling Leviathan

FACULTY AND senior administrators on a committee reviewing the College's administrative structure have astounded student activists this semester with their apparent willingness to endorse plans to make the Student Assembly the central, most powerful undergraduate organization at Harvard. This reformist mood reflects the realization that Harvard is one of the few colleges in the nation without an official student government. The time has come to give students a unified voice in University decisions.

Before enlarging the powers of the assembly, however, both Faculty and students should carefully consider the dangers of over-centralization and the past failures of the assembly. Within a year, students may vote on proposals to give the assembly authority to dispense money to other student groups, to advise the Administrative Board on disciplinary cases, to decide meal plans and security issues, to publish an official newsletter and to speak for undergraduates of University investments, College fees and curriculum requirements.

The Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Structure of College Governance, chaired by John E. Dowling, professor of Biology, is now studying these proposals. The four students, three Faculty members and one administrator on the Dowling Committee have met three times this semester and are scheduled to make a final report to Dean Fox in February. A majority of both students and Faculty will have to ratify the committee's recommendations before they can take effect.

The University has never officially recognized the assembly in the three years since it was created by the vote of a majority of undergraduates. Now operating under "provisional" recognition until the Dowling Committee completes its review, the assembly has an unimpressive record of past accomplishments--from free toilet paper to a rock concert--contributing to the widespread perception that it is little more than a plaything for "gov jocks."

THELASTSTUDENT government at Harvard was destroyed in the turmoil of the sixties, and the last review of College governance was conducted in 1969 by a committee chaired by the late Merle Fainsod, the Pforzheimer University Professor who, ironically, was an expert on Soviet government. The Fainsod Committee suggested the establishment of several independent student-Faculty committees that left students without a central body to assert their interests.

The Dowling Committee has considered three alternative methods of recombining those student-Faculty committees. The approaches differ in how delegates would be elected to the reborn assembly, but all three would eliminate the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) and the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL). Assembly subcommittees would assume the current functions of students on CUE and CHUL and would meet regularly with Faculty members.

In addition, students on the Dowling Committee have suggested granting the assembly authority to advise the Ad Board on disciplinary matters, to publish a newsletter and to distribute activities funds--collected by a term-bill surcharge--to other student groups.

The fundamental argument for increasing the powers of the assembly is that students could exert greater influence in University decisions through a single organization possessing the assembly's representative electoral structure. Student members of the Dowling Committee make this argument in private, but since they are aware that greater student activism may not sit well with administrators and Faculty, they have consistently argued in committee meetings that centralization would eliminate some of the duplication of work in the existing student-Faculty committees and would simplify the lines of communication and accountability between students and their representatives.

Possible arguments against centralization, none of which have been considered by the Dowling Committee this year, include the potential for tyrannical, arbitrary or misinformed leadership by a centralized student government. Students who believe assembly delegates will always be more interested in their resumes than in reform would be better off not expanding the assembly's power. The assembly's own record belies its claims of representativeness, efficiency and accountability.

THEASSEMBLY is not representative because many students do not vote and many delegates do not attend meetings. Voter turnouts have varied during the last three years, but in several Houses they have consistently been under 50 per cent. In its four meetings this year, the assembly has never reached 75 per cent of full attendance. The presence of a quorum--50 per cent--has been doubtful more often than not. At least one-third of the delegates have not yet fulfilled their obligation to join a committee.

Many committees seem to duplicate previous efforts every time a new assembly is elected and a new committee chairman takes charge. The assembly owes most of its successes to individual rather than group initiatives. As a group, the assembly tends to adopt stock answers--such as general resolutions and "open forums"--that represent a dissipation of energy and abandonment of responsibility.

In order to improve communication and accountability between delegates and their constituencies, the assembly has encouraged "town meetings" and reports to House Committees. Unfortunately, such events are infrequent, poorly publicized and sparsely attended. A large number of delegates obviously cannot report to constituents because they have missed the assembly meetings.

Assembly members claim that a more potent assembly would attract more dedicated delegates who would use the new powers to replicate in other areas the success the group has achieved in the only area where it has enjoyed autonomy from the University--social life. Many students still perceive great potential in the idea of an assembly, despite waning enthusiasm for the existing body.

The Dowling Committee cannot sensibly advocate increased powers for the assembly without first considering safeguards against abuses of power. The assembly itself should begin internal reforms to increase attendance, to reduce duplication of work from one term to the next, and to ensure that voters know the positions and attendance records of their representatives. Assembly officers should circulate petitions to recall delegates who consistently miss meetings.

None of the candidates and less than a quarter of the voters in February's upperclass elections will be among those who ratified the assembly's constitution three years ago. The assembly's original mandate has almost run out, and it should not be renewed without reflection and reform. The widespread student perception of the assembly as a failure contrasts ominously with the Dowling Committee's blinkered willingness to treat it as a success.