One Last Hurdle

The Undergraduate Council presidential hopefuls weren’t the only ones with white knuckles of anxiety last Thursday night. But when the votes had been tallied, the Environmental Action Committee (EAC)—who sponsored the proposed addition of a wind energy fee to next year’s termbill—had as much cause to celebrate as anyone.

82 percent of the nearly 4,000 students who cast ballots in last week’s election favored adding the proposed fee to the termbill, signaling campus support for at least giving individuals the opportunity to choose to contribute funding towards wind power (76 percent of voters preferred the fee remain optional). However, despite having garnered proof of their significant student backing, the EAC and its supporters now face the most significant obstacle to making the fee a reality: the Faculty Council.

Critics of the wind energy fee are quick to caution against a slippery slope. This is the second straight year a referendum on optional termbill charges has passed through the student body and come under the discretionary eye of the Faculty Council—the first being last year’s increase in the student activities fee. It is easy to see how some might fear an eventual laundry list of termbill items with Harvard students (and their parents) doling out funding to save the pandas, free Tibet or any of a number of other causes, charitable or otherwise, with no real relevance to life at the College.

This is a valid concern, but one that is largely without merit in this instance. In regards to fears that acceptance of the wind energy fee will establish a dangerous trend towards including items based on whatever story a flurry of ad campaigns can sell to the undergraduate body, the experience of the EAC serves as a counterexample in point. If the wind energy fee appears on the termbill next fall, it will have survived heated debate in the Undergraduate Council, a popular referendum and the review of the Faculty Council. With so many (and such diverse) checks on the necessity and appropriateness of a given proposal, it seems unlikely that plans irrelevant to undergraduate life will make it through the process.

The strongest argument that can be made in favor of including the wind energy fee on the termbill is precisely on this issue of relevance. Unlike the extraneous possibilities that have been thrown around by opponents, the wind energy fee is specifically targeted at an existing aspect of student consumption. Part of the room and board fee assessed to each undergraduate at the beginning of the term goes to providing electricity. The proposed optional fee would allow students not to change the goods and services offered, but to indicate their willingness to pay extra for the College to purchase a portion of their electricity from a more environmentally friendly source.

In this light, incorporating the wind energy fee is far less ominous. It is our hope that the Faculty Council will recognize that the threat of superfluous attempts to rewrite the termbill in the future should not preclude the adoption of a sound and important proposal.