The Cooperative Council

Senan Ebrahim ’12 and Bonnie Cao ’12, the immediate past president and vice president of the Undergraduate Council, ran their campaign in 2010 on the promise of changing the status quo by amplifying student voices. The hallmark of their platform was a grand vision of a meeting for students from all schools of the University to present their grievances on any issue, big or small, to the University’s top leaders. They called it the Forum for Change.

In the months since Ebrahim and Cao left office, after holding one session of a modified version of their forum at the end of their term, the Forum for Change itself has seen more change than the University.

The idea of the open forum has been scrapped in exchange for a committee called the Task Force on the Student Voice. Of its 16 members, half are students. It does not discuss issues per se, but how to eventually hear students’ thoughts on those issues.

The evolution from the confrontational forum to the cozy committee is emblematic of a new approach on the part of the UC’s 2012 leaders, President Danny P. Bicknell ’13 and Vice President Pratyusha Yalamanchi ’13.

Bicknell and Yalamanchi profess a belief that often, the best way to acheive students’ goals is not to fight administrators but to befriend them.

EASING THE TENSION

During the thirty years that the UC has existed, its relationship with College administrators has swung from combative to cooperative and back again repeatedly.

This semester, Bicknell said, members of the Council have worked on extending an olive branch to College administrators, an approach that he believes has worked. He said the UC has earned more respect from campus officials.

“The UC has gone a long way to being more credible with the administration: going deep on big issues, having conversations that are necessary,” he said.

David H. A. LeBoeuf ’13, the outgoing UC Rules Committee chair, advocated for a combination of antagonism and accord. But he said that the balance of that “healthy tension” shifts each time that new leaders take over the Council.

In his view, the incumbent leaders, Bicknell and Yalamanchi, whom he campaigned against as a vice presidential candidate in the fall, have pursued a more cooperative relationship with College administrators than he favors.

“I personally would like to see a bit more pushback, but the current leaders are more collaborative,” said LeBoeuf, who is also an inactive Crimson news editor. He said that he trusted that Bicknell and Yalamanchi’s decision to engage with administrators cooperatively was a strategic choice to further their goals for the UC and the student body.

Bicknell said that creating mutually respectful relationships did not mean that the UC would indiscriminately cooperate with College leaders. Instead, he said the ties established now will allow the UC to maintain a good working relationship even when differences in opinion arise.

“Sometimes the administration isn’t aligned with the students,” he said. “But it’s important to maintain respect and understand the motivating factors and stakeholders. As UC reps, our motivating factors are students.”

A COLLABORATIVE AGENDA

Council leaders have backed up their belief in friendly relations through several cooperative ventures this semester.

In January, UC representatives attended a Leadership Intensive Program to learn about the structure of Harvard’s bureaucracy from Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds, Dean of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson, Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris, and others.

With top College leaders on a panel in front of them, representatives asked not about their pet issues for improving student life but about the deans’ tips for leadership.

The Task Force on the Student Voice has taken on a similar focus—not on how to fix grievances but on how to talk about fixing them.

Samuel F. Wohns ’14 criticized the committee for its narrow scope that, in his opinion, prevents the UC from engaging in meaningful projects.

“It is important that the students have a say in student life, but that is not enough,” said Wohns, who is also a Crimson magazine editor.

But Bicknell said that such initiatives do lead to action on student life. By improving the UC’s image among administrators, he argued, the Council has opened up new avenues to addressing student needs. He said that administrators and University departments—including Harvard University Information Technology, Harvard University Dining Services, and the Committee on Undergraduate Education—have approached the UC with proposals for joint projects this semester.

He said that he envisions these collaborative initiatives becoming easier to accomplish in the coming years, if dialogue continues to become warmer between the Council and the College.

“By building a foundation and establishing these relationships, these things might not happen this year,” Bicknell said. “But we can start to make them happen.”

Bicknell’s administration has tried one of the oldest tricks in the book to woo administrators—they take them out to lunch. At the Lunch with a Dean series launched this semester, groups of students have dined five times in College dining halls with adminstrators, according to UC Representative Matthew R. Marotta ’14.

“It’s always great to talk over a meal, because it comes with the realization that the other party is a person too,” Yalamanchi said in March. “This is meant to be an informal, less intimidating way for students to speak to top College administrators and build relationships.”

AN UNEQUAL PARTNERSHIP

Despite the cooperative gestures this semester, critics charge that the relationship is fraught with problems on both sides. Administrators have proven generally unwilling to bend to student demands, some say, while Council leaders have been reluctant to pester them about contentious issues.

LeBoeuf pointed to instances this semester when the Council hesitated to pass legislation that might ruffle administrators’ feathers.

While Bicknell celebrated the UC’s endorsement of the Fair Harvard Fund—an account created by the student activist group Responsible Investment at Harvard to funnel donations into a socially responsible pot—LeBoeuf said that it took many argumentative meetings to secure that endorsement.

“There was a lot of discomfort with taking a stance like that,” he said.

LeBoeuf said that two freshmen hoping to use information from HUDS for a nutrition calculator also faced resistance.

“People asked why we should ask the administration to give that information out,” he said, theorizing that the UC’s noncombative stance has created an institution wary of opposition.

This replaces a more adversarial pattern in which students made more demands but Harvard’s leadership often did not assent.

When he was trying to establish the Forum for Change, Ebrahim called on students and alumni to urge the administration to participate in his initiative or a comparable forum for discussion.

In total, supporters sent more than 300 emails to University President Drew G. Faust before she agreed to attend a UC meeting alongside Hammonds and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith.

Despite the Council’s friendly outreach, two outgoing UC representatives said that student opinion still carries little weight in University Hall.

“It’s preposterous that the Dean of the College doesn’t interact with College students,” said outgoing Pforzheimer House Representative Justin Lanning ’12. LeBoeuf agreed, “I don’t think the administration takes the UC as seriously as it could.”

This summer, the Task Force plans to issue a recommendation to Hammonds on heeding the student voice. Hammonds will take up the proposal at her discretion.

And Bicknell said he sees further collaboration ahead, listing plans to cooperate on freshman social space, late-night programming, and more lunches.

“At the end of the day, we don’t want to burn bridges that already have gaps,” Bicknell said

—Staff writer Eliza M. Nguyen can be reached at enguyen@college.harvard.edu.