A Diversion Of Energy

TEN DOLLARS--they don't buy much these days, and the recent Dowling Committee proposal to tack a $10 surcharge onto term bills to fund a reconstituted student government won't buy students more decision-making power. Student government or its facsimiles has proved remarkably ineffective over the last ten years, and now the student-faculty committee investigating student governance wants to institutionalize that futility. Behind the bureaucratic veneer masking a revamped Student Assembly, chances are undergraduates will find themselves with even less input--if that is possible--into the decisions affecting this University.

But financial quibbles are not the major grounds on which we reject the latest proposal to legitimize a minimal amount of student advisory power. The Dowling proposal provides for no leverage in the University's decision-making process, and would have the practical effect of diverting student's political energy into yet another worthless committee.

Those who favor the Dowling proposal are to be commended for their acute sense of the lack of any organized student voice, influence or power in how Harvard is run. The implementation of the Core, which was opposed by 65 per cent of the student body, the call from a majority of students to end Harvard's contribution to apartheid, and, most recently, the erection of kiosks, all furnish ample proof of undergraduates' lack of power. In a situation where one side--the faculty and administration--holds all formal power, and the other side--students--holds none, the dominant group is unlikely to yield any of its absolute authority voluntarily. That power is to be taken; it will not be given.

The current student assembly's ineffectiveness has been obvious. Any consensus it has reached has had about as much impact on the College community as that of a debating society. To "improve" within the guidelines of the Dowling Committee, it would simply have to create even more resolutions and petitions that Harvard will ignore.

At best, the Dowling Committee's revised student assembly would function as a muted advisor to the University administration--the same role fulfilled by the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life and the Committee on Undergraduate Education since they were constituted a decade ago, when students had too much political conviction for the administration's comfort.

The crucial issue is not ten dollars--it is the split between structure and function. The structure, as proposed, facilitates only debate. The function needed from a College-wide organization is pressuring Harvard to take action students want. That function is lacking in any "advisory" body, particularly one officially sanctioned by the University. We do not need another organizational structure that sees students as consumers of Harvard's services. We need to change Harvard's power system. Right now, Harvard hears only what it wants to hear. The centralization and institutionalization of impotence does not merit support.

Perhaps regrettably, the only effective denting of the University's power system has come from without. Arnold Harberger last year declined an offer to head the Harvard Institute for International Development only after students made clear he was not wanted. The Kennedy School reversed its plan to name its library after Charles W. Engelhard only after students protested vigorously. Inronically, CHUL and CUE were established only after undergraduates went on strike. Any channeling of that type of political energy into an inherently weak advisory body accepts the administration on its own terms, not students'.