Counseling the Councillors

SO you want a seat on the Undergraduate Council.

Step right up. Let me guess. you must be a) running for re-election; b) fascinated by failure; c) stuffing your resume; d) all of the above; or e) a first-year student.

Congratulations.

If you've read this far, you deserve a vote. Why? Because only council members who understand students' ambivalence toward the council, recognize its shortcomings and acknowledge the importance of often vitriolic dissent can truly represent students.

THIS fall, the council's primary task will be facing up to the challenges that it posed last spring. Even as the council began to understand its own importance, it botched its responsibility. The ROTC controversy and the Vega concert fiasco were undeniable screw-ups, but they were the kind of screw-ups we associate with an uncertain beginner. Laudably the council was trying out its wings. A few false starts were to be expected.

The possiblilities now are fairly clear. Either the body will build upon the political legitimacy it won for itself last year, or it will become gun-shy and lapse back into complacent accommodation.

You remember--the age when the council was marked by parochial concerns and drifting vision of what students can accomplish for themselves. It was the age of campaigns for chocolate milk.

But if the council can regroup, centralize its committee structure to avoid another financial boondoggle and set its leadership to work on an well-thought out agenda, the council might win a measure of genuine respect from its constituents.

SKEPTICS take heart. Remember that last year the council forged a consensus on a broad range of divisive and complex issues for the first time in recent years. It condemned the socially elite, discriminatory final clubs; it organized credible student support for minority and women hiring reform at the University; it defined previously unvoiced anxieties over campus security. The council also came out (belatedly) in opposition to house assignment changes and backed the clerical and technical worker's union. These were not negligible accomplishments.

The council's statements, though not always sweeping or conclusive (and never unanimous), did precisely what a representative body should do: survey, distill and forcefully present what students feel.

And in the ultimate test, the council appears to have made gains where few would have predicted: This fall, the body has forced students to have a stake in their government. A rise in candicacy declarations and voter turn-out clearly testifies to students' support of an active council, if not indeed an activist one.

POTENTIAL pitfalls lie in two attitudes that demonstrably bore constituents and damage the council's credibility: precocity and parochialism. For example, one campaigner from Leverett House this fall promises a hot tub in every room. Another vows a condom should be placed on every doorstep.

In order to preserve its gains, the council must hit the ground running. To begin with, few actions could do more to underscore the continuity--really, legitimacy--of the council than to restate its opinion on final clubs, minority and women faculty hiring and security.

But pressing ahead, does the council dare address racial issues? Although racial tensions at Harvard have not reached the pitch of say, UMass or Stanford, race relations are arguably the greatest challenge before the student body. Witness last spring's unjustified seizure and search of two Black students by Cambridge police.

Henry A. Moses, the dean of first-year students, welcomed the Class of 1993 by celebrating its racial and ethnic diversity. The University's official newspaper, The Harvard Gazette, welcomed students back from the summer with a lead article emphasizing this diversity.

It takes more to tackle racial problems than the office of an assistant dean, a Harvard Foundation or an alliance of minority student groups--it takes action by a recognized representative body. The council must add its voice to the discussion.

Other issues loom. The issue of house diversity will pit student interests against student interests. The unfocused issue of Harvard's social life--especially the patent need for a student center--will pit student interests against the administration.

And of course, there is the continuing problem of defining what students deserve in terms of academics, advising, faculty and course offerings.

The eighth Undergraduate Council can be a powerful voice this year, if it acts with intelligence, energy and clear purpose. It certainly has its work cut out for it.