PUCC: Sloppy Slap Shot

Aside, perhaps, from its somewhat unfortunate acronym--sounding like a heavy black disk to be slapped around--the Progressive Undergraduate Council Coalition (PUCC) has the right spirit but an unbelievably flawed approach.

The PUCC, formed last spring by well-meaning campus liberals to refocus the council as a center of student activism, sounded promising at first. The Undergraduate Council, in its present state, is really a poor excuse for student government. Through no fault of its own (although its petty scandals and pontificating members do nothing to help), the council is nothing more than a glorified dance committee. (And if the word on the street is a guidepost at all, that title may soon be retracted--the U.C. sponsored Gala Ball is being called a flop-in-the-making, an event bringing strapless dresses and the frigid outdoors together for the first time.)

The U.C. suffers from a lack of mandate, a lack of institutionalized power, and a resulting lack of legitimacy in the eyes both of students and the administration. The council is just another extra-curricular activity, a dress-up game in which members pretend to be representing and governing. Incongruently, this one extra-curricular activity gets its funding straight out of students' term bills, claiming to be on a higher plane than, say, Model Congress. Initiatives in past years to take that funding away from the U.C. speak directly to students' view of the council's legitimacy and representation. It has none.

This problem could be solved by rebuilding the council's reputation for effectiveness, and making strong cases to the administration for greater binding power in student affairs. Start small: convey student opinion to the administration coherently on issues of importance, presenting a united front; continue to build on core strengths, like the various shuttle services and concentration fairs, that students actually find useful; and be responsible in the stewardship of funds (that means no more proposals for half-baked rock concerts to be "just as cool as Tufts").

This is where we get to the PUCC. Its founders claim to want to make the council more representative by increasing its diversity and by adopting a basic grass-roots type of student activism. But the way they're going about it smacks of consensus destruction and the same, bloated self-opinion we're so used to already from the U.C.

The PUCC's decidedly liberal bent may swing well with a majority of students, but it at once alienates and enrages legitimate conservative groups and individuals on campus. Pushing one partisan agenda or another is no way to secure representative legitimacy in the eyes of the campus as a whole.

While it may be true that the U.C. is a bastion of white males, its obvious wooing of the Asian American Association--and its membership uncannily similar to the editorial board of Perspective--present more of a threat to these incumbents than a genuine desire to work together in a common goal of reform.

And then we have the PUCC's "activist" agenda. This isn't merely activist: it's disillusional. It's as if the PUCC suddenly thinks it's the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It wants input into faculty hiring and tenure decisions, University divestiture from objectionable companies and a host of other heavy topics--like Core reform and financial aid policy--which, quite simply, are too important for a bunch of wild council faction members to decide for all of us. The PUCC claims to be able to effect these changes so casually that one wonders if it's all a joke. Or do they really think that the U.C. is an organization capable, with its frightfully bad reputation, of being a credible voice on these issues?

In the end, the PUCC does more harm than help in the progress to a real student government. Its obviously selective membership, its cache of specialized issues, and its breathtaking ambition--or foolishness--(and I prefer the latter) will sour caring students' hopes for the U.C. long into the future. Until then, I'll see you on a cold October night at the Gala Ball.

Patrick S. Chung's column appears on alternate Saturdays.