A Fitting End To The U.C.'s Year

The Undergraduate Council's last meeting of the year (May 15th) only made the obvious a bit more obvious: the council as it is presently constituted does not serve student interests.

A recap: five members resigned, including Hassen A. Sayeed '96, who admitted to secretly taping a phone conversation with a council executive. His resignation pre-empted a petition calling for Sayeed's expulsion which had already received the requisite 10 signatures.

And the censure of Vice President Joshua D. Liston '95 was declared void due to a technicality. After Liston had already admitted breaking council bylaws by not enforcing the attendance policy during the semester, the censure attempt was a half-hearted slap-on-the-wrist after the motion to expel him from his position failed only two weeks before. Liston's flagrantly illegitimate behavior has thus been validated by the council's own incompetence.

While council members could not even manage a public criticism of Liston's obviously improper behavior, members did waste time passing a resolution to recommend Administrative Board action for three Crimson staffers. Evidently, council members know evil when they see it, just not when they do it.

Upon resigning, Sayeed offered some insight into the way the right things don't get done in the council: "I have not done what I knew before was right, nor made friends with people whose principles I understood and respected because I was afraid it would hurt me and alienate me from the quiet power struggles that happen behind the scenes in this council."

And, according to Sayeed, this sentiment has been echoed by dozens of council members. Sayeed's comments serve to underline the council's fundamental problem: internal political maneuvering all too often reduces substantive issues to secondary importance.

Council President Caray W. Gabay '94 has also apparently recognized these serious problems but is confident that they will soon be resolved: "I feel as if I didn't complete my job and didn't make this a better institution, but I'm sure the people that come after me will."

We're not so sure. Unless serious changes are implemented upon return in the fall, the council will most likely revert to the same incompetence and illegitimacy which have been so glaring this past semester.

After all, the "people that come after" Gabay are essentially the same people responsible for most of this past semester's problems. For example, as vice president, Josh Liston is in a natural position to take over the presidency in the fall.

Indeed, it appears that his campaign already, as his recent letter to The Crimson (May 23, 1994) waxed politically about Gabay's "inspiring" leadership.

The serious possibility of a Liston presidency is precisely what makes the council fail to serve student interests. In order to avoid more of the same, the council should adopt and most significant of the campaign reforms which students supported in the May referendum: the direct election of top council executives by students.

While the turnout for the three-day May referendum did not meet the 50 percent that the council said was necessary to make the results automatically binding, 68 percent of those voting did support direct election.

And the poor turnout was not helped by the fact that council members failed to table for votes during many meals. Even worse, the referendum was scheduled during the busy Reading Period due to the failure of the previous attempt at a council-run referendum in early May.

To be sure, such a change would require more money and time to be spent on elections, but at this point serious reform is desperately needed. By making the top leaders of the council pass a student popularity test, as opposed to a council popularity test, the unique possibility might actually develop that the council leaders will serve students' interests, instead of council interests.

To bolster such a change, the council should also adopt another reform which passed the referendum: holding elections each semester. Such accountability would allow students the opportunity to vote out members who have failed to perform their duties.

And during that evening of the last council meeting, Sayeed expressed an insight which we have been repeating for months: "I've lost faith in the council now and forever, and I think many people have." Swift and serious reform in the fall might allow everyone to amend such an assessment.

Of course, we're not holding our breath.