Poison Ivy?

This year's Undergraduate Council is tightening its belt in almost every area. Due to budget shortages, the council only gives student groups an average of half the money they request in grants each year, and the council has even turned to outside companies to help fund this year's Springfest.

But one expenditure the council has been unwilling to cut thus far is the approximately $1,000 each year it spends to send a handful of council members to Ivy Council conferences at other Ivy League campuses.

That $1,000, some have said, could mean four additional grants to student groups.

And while some council members say the Ivy Council conferences promote communication between the participating schools, few can point to tangible benefits for Harvard.

Oh, the Places You'll Go

Twice a year, each of the eight Ivy League colleges sends student government members to Ivy Council meetings, where the students discuss campus issues, share ideas for effective student government, listen to speakers and go to parties.

The price tag on the trips to planning meetings in New York City, leadership meetings at Yale and the conferences themselves is at least $1,000, according to Sterling P.A. Darling '01, the Undergraduate Council's treasurer.

Last semester's conference included breakout sessions on social life, student group funding, ethnic studies, financial aid, health services and other topics.

But although the breakout sessions are the only events on the agenda that focus on tangible student-life topics, they took up only three hours of the three-day conference.

And the minutes from the sessions suggest that Harvard's participation is often half-hearted.

Although participants are supposed to submit reports to the Ivy Council on the topic of each breakout session they attend, Harvard's delegates last semester submitted no written report for half of the eight breakout sessions they attended.

Many of the reports they neglected to prepare were on topics that the Undergraduate Council has identified are problem areas at Harvard.

For instance, while the council has made a point of lobbying to reform University Health Services, Harvard's Ivy Council delegates gave no report to the breakout group about health services on this campus.

This partial participation was typical of schools at the conference. If every Ivy League college had submitted a report at each of the eight breakout sessions, there would be 64 reports in total. But delegates actually submitted just 42 reports.

And with only a handful of colleges issuing reports on any one issue, the conference book suggests it may have been difficult for some of the breakout groups to be as productive as they hoped. For instance, the breakout group dealing with sexual harassment only saw three of the eight colleges issue reports, and the delegates' discussions in the session produced little more than one page of notes.

Few Tangible Benefits

The program's opponents say the biggest problem with the Ivy Council is that the group just doesn't get much done.

Council member David B. Orr '01 says he can't think of a single improvement made at Harvard due to the Ivy Council.

Part of the problem, according to Darling, may be that while the Ivy Council provides its delegates with some information, "it doesn't necessarily provide the information that you need."

Issues that come up at Harvard--such as universal keycard access, Fly-By lunches, and ROTC--are so specific to this campus that they can't necessarily be anticipated and addressed by the Ivy Council, Darling says.

Even former Undergraduate Council Vice President Kamil E. Redmond '00, a former delegate to the conference and supporter of the program, says the conferences have not affected the Undergraduate Council agenda.

"There's no policy that comes out of the Ivy Council," she says.

Alexander A. Boni-Saenz '01--who says he likes the idea of information flowing between student governments in principle--says he's "not sure" that the group has accomplished anything substantial. And in the final analysis, he says adequate funding for student groups might take precedence over the Ivy Council.

"We definitely have to look for places to cut back," Boni-Saenz said. "The Ivy Council may be one of them."

Council member Kyle D. Hawkins '01 suggests that Undergraduate Council members could get the same information they obtain at the conferences for free elsewhere. Ivy League student government presidents could e-mail and call each other, he says.

And Darling says much of the information delegates get at Ivy Council conferences could be obtained by for free by checking the various Ivy

League colleges' websites.

The Ivy Council's detractors acknowledge that the program has some merit, but emphasize the need to see results from the program soon.

"I don't support using student money to pay for some council members to go off to another Ivy college and have a fun weekend," Hawkins says.

In Defense

Fentrice D. Driskell '00, the Undergraduate Council's president, says the organization is just beginning to show its worth.

"We have yet to see everything the Ivy Council can do," she says.

James C. Coleman '03, Harvard's head delegate to the Ivy Council, says that proof of the conference's value is on the way.

"The organization really has a serious answer to people who criticize it as a waste of money," Coleman says.

Coleman and Ivy Council President Matthew C. Ebbel '01 say the Ivy Council didn't understand its proper role until about a year and a half ago. Until then, Ebbel says, the group tried to make sweeping statements on behalf of the Ivy League in general.

Now, after rewriting its constitution, the organization is content to serve the more modest but achievable goal of spreading information around the Ivy League.

And to hear Ebbel and Coleman tell it, that information flow is finally bringing concrete results to the student body.

For instance, Driskell says she got the centerpiece of her agenda this year, Harvard Census 2000, from a similar proposal mentioned by Dartmouth College delegates at an Ivy Council conference where she was a delegate.

And Driskell's program is not the only thing that has come out of the Ivy Council. The conference also led to the creation of another conference, the Ivy Leadership Summit, to which Harvard sent 10 students last weekend.

This year's Ivy Council is also responsible for IvyCorps, an Ivy-wide community service project that will take place on April 8.

Campus Life Committee Chair Stephen N. Smith '02, who is organizing Harvard's IvyCorps effort credits "Ivy Council contacts" with making the event happen.

Future Prospects

Ivy council critics applaud these efforts, but say they still wonder if these innovations are worth $1,000 per year in a time of financial difficulty for the Undergraduate Council.

"We were right to allocate the money for the Ivy Council this year," Orr says. "But we need to look very, very carefully at whether to keep allocating money next year."

Two years ago, Darling says, the Undergraduate Council came very close to withdrawing from the ivy council. But he says now that the group seems to be producing some concrete projects, such a withdrawal seems highly unlikely this year--despite the Undergraduate Council's budget problems.

Darling says another reason the Undergraduate Council may be reluctant to pull out of the group is that Ebbel, a Harvard student, is the group's overall president.

But despite these considerations, Darling says he expects some council members to push for reevaluation of group membership in the spring.

He says he does not think the Undergraduate Council will withdraw from the group, but that every semester Ivy Council delegates must work harder and harder to justify the expenditure, as more student group grant requests are turned away.