Undergraduates

Student government groups this year concentrated a large portion of their debates on how to reorganize themselves into a more efficient and responsive bureaucracy. The present structure of governance for the College is best described as amorphous; it includes a Student Assembly, which is unrecognized by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; a students-only Educational Resources Group, which has input into the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE), a student-Faculty group; the large and unwieldy student-Faculty Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL); the Faculty Council and its never-heard-from subcommittees; the Faculty itself, which meets, ideally, once a month; 13 House committees; and the Freshman Council--among other bodies.

To try to make some sense out of that clutter, an eightmember student-Faculty committee formed to examine College governance met more than a dozen times over the last year. Chaired by John E. Dowling '57, professor of Biology, the group produced a document that has come to be known as the Dowling Report, which suggested several changes in the structure of College governance. The primary alterations include establishing a student council with five subcommittees and retaining CUE--which Dowling Committee members considered the model committee--while splitting CHUL in two. The Faculty Council-Faculty structure would remain intact under the Dowling plan, which also proposes adding a $10 term-bill subcharge to provide the student council with a budget to organize activities and fund straggling undergraduate groups.

The proposal, released in March, incited heated discussions, especially over the surcharge recommendation. Nevertheless, 77 per cent of students who voted in a College-wide referendum in April supported the plan. One-third of the undergraduate student body took part in that vote. Faculty members then voiced unanimous support for the plan at their meeting in May.

But bureaucracy is now holding up implementation of the new bureaucracy. Faculty approval is necessary before the Dowling plan can take effect, but the May vote was non-binding. The Faculty will hold another vote on specific legislation in the fall, after committees working on implementation of the plan finish their work. Students will also vote again in the fall on a constitution, which was drafted this spring, for the Student Council. If the Faculty and a majority of the entire undergraduate student body approve the specifics of the proposal in the fall, the issue will go to the Harvard Corporation for final, and rubber-stamp, approval. If all goes according to plan, the Dowling system could be in operation by second semester next year.

As the proposal for a new system of governance was taking shape, students used existing channels and, often, extreme means to express their opinions on a variety of issues. Undergraduates were most piqued during the fall by new restrictions on where organizations could post announcements and by old--but arguably short--library hours during reading period and exams.

The postering controversy centered on seven, harmless-looking, brown, three-sided kiosks placed at several strategic points in the Yard last summer at a cost of $10,000 each. The administration restricted postering to the seven kiosks, which often became overcrowded with leaflets and announcements. Previously, organizations had been allowed to place posters anywhere in the Yard as long as they had the approval of the dean of students' office.

Administrators said the kiosks and postering restrictions would help keep the Yard neater looking; outraged students said the rules restricted easy dissemination of information. In early October, the Student Assembly condemned the new rule. Later that month, a group of leaders from several organizations met with Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, to request several changes in the regulation, including installation of more bulletin boards around campus, distribution of a weekly newsletter on student activities, and cancellation of plans to install any more kiosks.

The administration remained intransigent, and a group of disenchanted Student Assembly "radicals" formed a group called GUERRILLA--Galvanized Undergraduates for the Effective Reinforcement and Response to Ignored but Legitimate Legislative Actions--whose members spent most of November and part of December surreptitiously ripping posters off kiosks and hanging them on gates and buildings. After several CHUL meetings and private conferences, during which Epps threatened to fine organizations that violated the CHUL meetings and private conferences, during which Epps threatened to fine organizations that violated the postering rule, the administration finally relented and agreed to several of the demands, including distributing the newsletter, insuring better maintenance of the kiosks, and installing more bulletin boards around campus.

GUERILLA made headlines again in January, when it organized a "study-in" at Lamont Library to protest the lack of a 24-hour study area in the Yard. About 70 students joined in the quiet sit-in-on Lamont's ground floor after the 1 a.m. closing time. Heather C. Cole, librarian of Hilles and Lamont Libraries, asked the protesters to leave. When they refused, she called Epps, who arrived to say that he would meet with a small group of them the next day. The demonstration ended at 2 a.m. A few days later, the administration agreed to keep the Science Center's cafe open 24 hours a day as an experiment during reading and exam periods.

A protest of a more serious nature took place in November, when about 400 men and women marched to protest violence against women and the attitudes that lead to it. The "Take Back the Night" march focused on what many members of the community viewed as an increased security problem. It also reminded people of what administrators have been saying for years--that Harvard, despite its iron gates and red brick walls, is an integral part of a big, and often dangerous, city.