U.C. Defied Student Opinion

Many members of the Undergraduate Council who voted on Sunday night to raise the term-bill fee--including the council's entire executive board--claimed to be serving the student body.

"If we vote this increase, we're doing what the students want," former Chair Michael P. Beys '94 said in the meeting.

That statement, however, turned out to be dead wrong.

As his evidence, Beys cited a council survey which, he said, offered a mandate for a bigger campus presence for the council. In the survey, Beys claimed that "75 percent of the students wanted more concerts. And we don't have the money to do this."

But in making that statement, Beys misrepresented the truth.

The survey he cited asked students to identify the area in which, "[a]bove all, the U.C. should invest more of its money."

The survey said nothing about increasing the term-bill fee by $10 or using added money for more social events, as council members promised to do with the funds they voted themselves Sunday.

"I'll go on record as the person who wrote this survey and say that it was not a question about spending more," Christopher J. Garofalo '94 said last night.

A Crimson survey conducted last weekend confronted the issue more directly. The Crimson poll shows that just 18 percent of the students body supports the term-bill hike.

That fact did not seem to trouble Council President Carey W. Gabay '94 or Vice President Joshua D. Liston '95. When presented with the poll's results Sunday night, neither Gabay nor Liston attempted to explain away the results.

"That's to be expected, right?" Gabay said toListon as they glanced at the numbers. The vicepresident nodded in agreement.

The council even refused to allow students toexpress their views of the fee hike. On Sundaynight, council members rejected an amendment madeby David V. Bonfili '96 to submit the increase toa referendum.

"If the students support [this]," Bonfili said,taking Beys' argument one step further, "it shouldpass a referendum."

But Beys said that students had elected councilmembers to make decisions, and that the councilmust live up to this responsibility.

In the days before the vote, council memberstried to keep a fairly low profile on the proposedfee hike. Few council members moved to buildstudent support for the hike, which threatened tobecome controversial.

Aside from a letter to the Independent, thecouncil made almost no effort to publicize itseffort and get student feedback. And that letterdiscussed inflationary pressures and comparisonsbetween Harvard's and other colleges' studentgovernment fees. The letter made little mention ofwhether the council actually deserved the money.

This failure to build consensus contrastssharply with the Council's efforts to seek studentinput before introducing reform of the academiccalendar.

Of course, calendar reform is a politicallysafe issue. The council's survey showed that 71percent of the student body supports calendarreform, according to Student Affairs CommitteeChair Hassen A. Sayeed '96.

The council, it seems, was eager to publicizean important and popular issue, but was lesswilling to inform student about an equallyimportant, but much more unpopular, measure

"That's to be expected, right?" Gabay said toListon as they glanced at the numbers. The vicepresident nodded in agreement.

The council even refused to allow students toexpress their views of the fee hike. On Sundaynight, council members rejected an amendment madeby David V. Bonfili '96 to submit the increase toa referendum.

"If the students support [this]," Bonfili said,taking Beys' argument one step further, "it shouldpass a referendum."

But Beys said that students had elected councilmembers to make decisions, and that the councilmust live up to this responsibility.

In the days before the vote, council memberstried to keep a fairly low profile on the proposedfee hike. Few council members moved to buildstudent support for the hike, which threatened tobecome controversial.

Aside from a letter to the Independent, thecouncil made almost no effort to publicize itseffort and get student feedback. And that letterdiscussed inflationary pressures and comparisonsbetween Harvard's and other colleges' studentgovernment fees. The letter made little mention ofwhether the council actually deserved the money.

This failure to build consensus contrastssharply with the Council's efforts to seek studentinput before introducing reform of the academiccalendar.

Of course, calendar reform is a politicallysafe issue. The council's survey showed that 71percent of the student body supports calendarreform, according to Student Affairs CommitteeChair Hassen A. Sayeed '96.

The council, it seems, was eager to publicizean important and popular issue, but was lesswilling to inform student about an equallyimportant, but much more unpopular, measure