Council, E4D Mend Fences

If any questions remained about how much the Undergraduate Council has changed in the last few years, this week's Endowment for Diverstiture planning meeting should answer them.

Monday night at a council-sponsored meeting on E4D, representatives and a handful of seniors began setting up structures which they hope will give the fund the institutional foundation to carry it into the next century.

The council created the endowment in 1983 as part of the body's efforts to pressure the University to sell its $163.8 million of South Africa-related stocks.

The endowment, which now holds about $25,000, keeps seniors' gifts in escrow until the University sells its South Africa-related investments. If Harvard has not divested by 2003, E4D will donate its funds to local charities, such as Phillips Brooks House.

But in the midst of a dispute between the council chair and E4D's directors during the winter of 1985-1986, institutional ties were cut between the two groups. Symbolic ties were also cut, and the council embarked on a less political, more student service-oriented tack which would last nearly three years.

Many of the students on the council in its early years were activists, and the formal ties between E4D and the council served as a very visible reminder of what they envisioned as the student government's political role--until Brian C. Offut '87 was elected council chair.

At the time, E4D's charter called for the council's chair to act as the divestment fund's president, and Offut, a self-described "libertarian" who opposed divestment, assumed his role at the top of E4D.

Offut increasingly drew fire from E4D's other directors, who said he was not adequately promoting the group. He ended up resigning his post, and the council and E4D came to share no more than a mailing address.

In the midst of the Offut controversy, a binding student body referendum forced the council actively to pursue divestment. But Offut's reelection as council chair in February of 1986 was interpreted as a conscious effort by council members to avoid political controversy and embrace issues--such as extending library hours and hosting social events--that would not alienate any segment of the student body.

The course continued until last fall when the body--galvanized by the divisive issue of Harvard's nine all-male final clubs--again turned its attention to political questions.

E4D was once again embraced, and council members hoped to put the student government's imprimateur behind the fund--which has been run recently by an annually changing group of seniors. To that end, the council created an ad hoc committee on divestment and named an official liaison to E4D.

Questions remain about how direct a role the council will assume in running the endowment, but thus far the body appears to be spearheading efforts to run this year's fund drive.

"The council has made a commitment to promote divestment," Undergraduate Council Chair Kenneth E. Lee '89 said last fall. "And seeing as we helped create E4D, which is one dimension in a divestment strategy, we should re-establish ties with it."