New Council Leadership Steps Up

The Undergraduate Council (UC) elected heads to its two standing committees yesterday in a session that followed the inauguration of new UC leaders Ryan A. Petersen ’08 and Matthew L. Sundquist ’09.

Alexander N. “Zander” Li ’08 will steer the UC’s Financial Committee

(FiCom), while Michael R. Ragalie ’09 will lead the Student Activities Committee (SAC).

In their inaugural addresses, Petersen and Sundquist rehashed much of their campaign platform, including mental health advocacy, teaching fellow reform, and calendar change, which Ragalie pinpointed as one of his primary focuses.

For his part, Petersen drew a link between mental health and the need for calendar reform.

“This is an important facet of mental health at Harvard,” he said, citing the longer breaks, improved opportunities for summer internships, more accessible cross-registration, and greater peace of mind that could follow a reformed calendar.

As for internal UC reforms, it seems that FiCom procedures will remain largely intact, although both Li and Sundquist said they wanted to improve the efficiency of UC deliberations, particularly those related to FiCom.

“My goal...is to make this whole grants process as efficient, as transparent, and as accountable as we possibly can, and that’s the ballgame,” Li said, referring to the process by which funding is meted out to student groups.

Students groups will continue to apply for funding by filling out an internet application, followed by an interview by FiCom.

The committee, as is the case now, will submit its suggested allotment figures to the UC floor. In the past, it is there that the numbers have tended to fall subject to further debate.

But Sundquist urged that this final stage of debate be shortened through e-mail contact with the FiCom chair before the FiCom-approved funding package hits the UC floor.

Sundquist said he plans to meet with FiCom on Saturday to vet the guidelines for fund allotment.

Those guidelines, he said, will be posted on the UC Web site starting Monday, the day online student grant applications go live.

Shortening the debate is just one way to speed up other legislation on the UC floor, Sundquist said.

Given that general legislation is merely a jumping off point for action, extensive wrangling over clauses or sentences in the legislation itself is unwarranted, he said.

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.