CUE Bylaws Violated

Concerns about balancing student-faculty participation in the Committee on Undergraduate Education have surfaced in the last few days, prompting the Undergraduate Council to action Sunday night.

According to its amended 1982 bylaws, five faculty members, named by the dean of the faculty, and five students, elected from within the Undergraduate Council, comprise the committee.

But as it stands now, voting privileges appear lopsided--with seven voting faculty members and only five voting student members.

According to Associate Professor of Applied Mechanics Howard A. Stone, a CUE member, there are certainly more than five faculty CUE members.

"There are more on the order of seven," Stone said.

Undergraduate Council member Marco B. Simons '97 said CUE chair Lawrence Buell, the dean for undergraduate education, does not deny this inequity.

"I talked to Dean Buell about it and he said there were no more than seven faculty members. He didn't dispute, however, that there were more than five," Simons said.

While Buell said yesterday that the imbalance would be rectified in the future, Undergraduate Council and student CUE members say they still are disturbed by this imbalance.

"I think that since the CUE committee was set up as a student-faculty committee, the imbalance directly negates the role students play in decision-making," said Elizabeth A. Haynes '98, the council's student affairs committee vice-chair and a member of the CUE.

"If we're underrepresented on the committee, then students are underrepresented in terms of what committee is doing and planning," Haynes added.

In response to the infraction, the council passed a measure Sunday urging Buell to "bring the structure and composition of the CUE within the guidelines specified."

And Simons, who is not a CUE member, says he won't let the issue go until student-faculty representation is equalized.

If the situation on the CUE does not change, Simons said he would push thecouncil to take further action.

"Though the U.C. has no official plans, I amgoing to propose to the student affairs committeeto send two more student representatives to theCUE committee meeting," said Simons.

Student CUE members say they are also concernedabout the committee's meeting times, and cited theinflexibility of the meeting time as another causeof unequal student participation.

Currently, the committee meets once a month onWednesday afternoons from 2 to 4, and, because ofclasses, only three of the five students on thecommittee can attend meetings at that time.

"I asked Dean Buell about it and he looked atme and said `The time is not negotiable,'" CUEmember Randall A. Fine '96 said at Sunday'sUndergraduate Council meeting. "We're only secondclass members of the committee."

Another CUE member says she agrees with Fine'ssentiment.

"Faculty members' schedules tend to changelittle from semester to semester, but studentschedules change radically because of newclasses," said Haynes.

"We need to change the pre-set times from firstsemester. Randy can't come at all and Greg[Corbett] can only come for an hour unless heskips class...if we lose students, we lose votesunless members are there."

"I would suggest that we re-evaluate the timeof the meetings," Haynes continued. "It's clearlygood for faculty, but really bad for students, andcompletely eliminating that possibility [oftime-change] sends a negative message to students.It's just generally unfair.

"Though the U.C. has no official plans, I amgoing to propose to the student affairs committeeto send two more student representatives to theCUE committee meeting," said Simons.

Student CUE members say they are also concernedabout the committee's meeting times, and cited theinflexibility of the meeting time as another causeof unequal student participation.

Currently, the committee meets once a month onWednesday afternoons from 2 to 4, and, because ofclasses, only three of the five students on thecommittee can attend meetings at that time.

"I asked Dean Buell about it and he looked atme and said `The time is not negotiable,'" CUEmember Randall A. Fine '96 said at Sunday'sUndergraduate Council meeting. "We're only secondclass members of the committee."

Another CUE member says she agrees with Fine'ssentiment.

"Faculty members' schedules tend to changelittle from semester to semester, but studentschedules change radically because of newclasses," said Haynes.

"We need to change the pre-set times from firstsemester. Randy can't come at all and Greg[Corbett] can only come for an hour unless heskips class...if we lose students, we lose votesunless members are there."

"I would suggest that we re-evaluate the timeof the meetings," Haynes continued. "It's clearlygood for faculty, but really bad for students, andcompletely eliminating that possibility [oftime-change] sends a negative message to students.It's just generally unfair.