The Case for a Strong UC

The current state of the Undergraduate Council (UC) has been described with many disapproving epithets: ineffective, unrepresentative, unresponsive, overly bureaucratic, and quarrelsome, to name just a few. Of all complaints, one is particularly damaging: When students look at the big picture of college life, the UC is simply irrelevant.

Its irrelevance is hardly a surprise. The UC has no substantial say on the big issues that engage the hearts and minds of Harvard students. It takes no position of real weight on how much money our wealthy University offers to students or workers. It expresses only nominal support for popular causes, such as Take Back the Night.

The UC can do nothing to protest against the College when it makes dubious decisions like the no-alcohol policy at this year’s Harvard-Yale tailgate, or the recent tax on donations to student groups. Meanwhile, it applauds post factum bold steps taken by the University, such as the financial aid initiative or the curricular review.

In other words, the UC is just a slothful bystander. It merely turns its head in the direction of the student-life parade, with a grin or a frown according to the occasion, but it never leads that parade. Instead, various interest groups, bloggers, a few tormented souls from The Crimson, and outsiders (parents, donors, Boston Globe reporters) are the intermediaries between students and University sages. They are doing, often inadequately and for their own ends, the job the UC should be doing.

Given the inevitable shortage of important issues to debate, UC elections become an annual “Carnival of the Vanities.” Dressed up in blazers and smacking of complacent compassion for every cause that crosses their path, candidates advertise their credentials and “their vision for a new UC.” Besides personal networking, the main electoral criterion is the pre-election debate: essentially, how effectively a candidate can give evasive answers to difficult and often irrelevant questions.

To an extent, this is the price one pays for holding popular elections. In the case of the UC, however, the whole situation is tragicomic, because the stakes are so low. The UC’s eloquent visionaries simply allocate money to student groups, provide shuttles to Yale and the airport, and launch a few badly planned social events. And since the creation of the Student Events Committee (SEC), the UC won’t even have responsibility for social events.

Here, then, is an alternative “vision” for the Undergraduate Council: The UC should, by embracing politicization and party politics, tackle broader social and political issues.

The Council could be reborn from its ashes. It could become, with its electoral legitimacy, centralized resources, and brilliant community-conscious leaders, the single most effective force of student activism on this campus. The UC’s annual elections could turn into a great opportunity for soul searching, based on the platforms of competing candidates. UC meetings could reemerge a useful forum for public discussion, with representatives talking about real issues and producing new ideas instead of congratulating themselves on following Robert’s Rules of Order.

In this sense, the UC needs to do more, not less, as some of its critics have suggested. It should be more aggressive vis-à-vis the administration on issues ranging from extended dining hall hours to the selection of a new president. On many social and political issues, students are left voiceless because the UC stays silent; a new UC could express the general student spirit and opinion. At the same time, the UC would be less radical than the various self-selecting campus interest groups, who would depend upon the UC as a reliable gateway to the administration.

Of course, such a drastic overhaul of campus politics cannot happen within the current system of elections. Although making Houses “electoral districts” is a great idea, the problem lies in the fact that representatives are elected individually. For instance, there is no communication among candidates to create a common plan of action before the elections. Some representatives meet for the first time at the UC’s opening meeting.

Furthermore, it is ludicrous to say that UC President John S. Haddock ’06 continues the work of his predecessor, Matthew J. Glazer ’06. They, or any two candidates for that matter, share no common set of principles. The lack of common principles or shared positions leads to the unaccountability that plagues the current UC. It also disappoints some diligent representatives, who struggle without a sense of purpose.

One possible solution is to link the elections to two or three groups with broader political agendas. Every year, these groups would come up with comprehensive electoral lists and platforms. The most obvious candidates are the College Democrats and Republicans. They could turn from party mouthpieces and Washington-internship funnels into responsible conveyors of a coherent political message that is relevant to the needs of the student community. Competition between two parties would sharpen the reflexes of the entire Council, and representatives would finally acquire both a point of reference and accountability.

There are dangers in this vision: overpoliticizing the UC, polarizing the campus, and creating a huge political mechanism that stifles specific demands. But Harvard students shouldn’t hesitate to enter the realm of representative campus politics. The College is a relatively small community. Independent publications, the diversity of undergraduate interests, and the sensibility of most Harvard students would easily hold the UC in check.

Ultimately, a stronger, more political student government would actually be relevant to students, because it would address issues that students care about. It could become a UC Harvard students are proud of.



Mihalis Moutselos ‘07 is a government concentrator in Dunster House.