Fate of CLC Awaits UC Vote

The decision by the Undergraduate Council (UC) to vote on a constituional amendment that would create a new services committee to replace its current Campus Life Committee (CLC) has sparked a flood of comments from campus politicos over group e-mail lists and campus blogs.

A number of UC members and undergraduates have expressed disappointment that a majority of UC members chose the constitutional amendment to create an Outreach and Services Committee (OSC) at Monday’s council meeting over two other proposals—one to downsize the council to two committees and reduce the UC’s membership to two representatives per House and another to divide the Student Affairs Committee into two separate committee.

UC President John S. Haddock ’07, who supported the plan to downsize the council, wrote in an e-mail to the UC shortly after Monday’s meeting that the UC had “sacrificed our greaest [sic] opportunity to improve the UC’s standing in the eyes of the student body.”

“We needed to cut the fat, and we’ve passed up our golden opporunity,” Haddock wrote.

Council member Jeffrey Kwong ’09 wrote in an e-mail earlier this week that the council should have given greater consideration to Haddock’s proposal.

“We have turned a deaf ear to the ideas [Haddock] campaigned for,” Kwong wrote, noting that the support of the campus for Haddock’s “Fix the UC” platform should have carried more weight with the council.

Ryan M. Donovan ’07 responded to Haddock’s e-mail suggesting that the plan to cut the UC to two committees overlooked the events and services that CLC provided students, such as the Pep Rally, holiday shuttles, and dollar movie nights.

UC Secretary Magdey A. Abdallah ’07 wrote an e-mail encouraging council members “who—like me—believes that the current plan is flawed” to vote against the OSC amendment.

“I don’t think we’ve done the thorough intropection required to think up an effective and worthwhile proposal, and we certainly haven’t reached out to the student body in the way that we did when we were considering social programming reform,” Abdallah wrote.

If the amendment to create OSC fails at Sunday’s meeting—it requires 3/4 of the council’s votes to pass, with 2/3 of the council casting ballots­—then CLC will continue to exist in its current form, though campus-wide social events will be organized by the College Events Board, which the UC created last month.

The expectation of the council when the College Events Board was created was that CLC would be dissolved and the UC would be restructured.

Lauren P.S. Epstein ’07, a sponsor of the OSC proposal, defended the new committee in an e-mail yesterday.

“In my opinion, by cutting to 2 reps and limiting ourselves to advocacy and grants, we are sending a message loud and clear to the campus: We are perfect and could not possibly be doing anything more to serve you better,” she wrote.

Epstein added that a committee similar to OSC had been successful at Brown.

The debate over OSC has extended beyond the UC’s e-mail list to the blogosphere. Campus blog Team Zebra has written extensively on the reform proposals, and Team Zebra writer and former council member Neeraj “Richie” Banerji ’06 has also sent messages over the UC’s open list criticizing OSC as an unnecessary third committee.

Writing on behalf of the “people,” Banerji requested a daily update on the OSC vote—which is open until the next UC meeting is called to order—be sent over the UC’s e-mail list so that “[undergraduates] can know the minds of our elected representatives better and perhaps discuss with them whether their votes reflect our opinions and desires before voting period ends.”

According to UC Vice President Annie R. Riley ’07, who records the votes of constitutional amendments, the results of the OSC vote as of last evening were 20 representatives in favor, four against.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.