The UC: Forceful + Weak

Sirens were blaring, an MIT police officer was dead, and there had been no word from the University for more than an hour. A quarter before two in the morning, Undergraduate Council President Tara Raghuveer ’14 sent a very public email.

The message, addressed to two top College administrators and copied to the approximately 250 members of the UC general list, urged Harvard officials to update the student body on the status of the violence, even if it were no more than “just a word to stay inside and stay calm.”

“Students feel there is no direction,” the email said. “Any updated information would be appreciated.”

This assertive and open pressure on the administration’s emergency response on the night of the manhunt for the Boston Marthon bombing suspects is typical of Raghuveer and UC Vice President Jen Q. Y Zhu ’14’s approach towards student government. It is also typical of how the University responds to that approach.

Although Raghuveer’s email was followed 15 minutes later by another MessageMe update updating the community about the situation in the Greater Boston area, there is no evidence to suggest that Raghuveer’s request influenced Harvard’s decision making. When asked what factors spurred their actions that night, administrators point to accurate information obtained from law enforcement authorities about threats to Harvard. They do not credit the Undergraduate Council.

Former and current UC representatives say that Raghuveer and Zhu are more assertive than their immediate predecessors, but that they are no more effective in convincing administrators to take action. No matter what approach the Council takes to encourage change, these skeptics say, Harvard will continue to act when it wants to and on its own terms.

“We can demand as much relevance as we want, be as assertive as we want, but at the end of the day the administrators make the decisions,” said Sietse K. Goffard ’15, a UC representative from Currier House.

AS THE PENDULUM SWINGS

UC Student Relations Committee Chair James B. Pollack ’14 believes that from one year to the next, UC leaders oscillate between two theories of student governance.

“The UC presidency is kind of like a pendulum in that in a year-to-year basis there are two philosophies with which you can approach being the Undergraduate Council,” Pollack said. “You can approach it as, ‘We don’t have any power so we should work as closely with the administration...because they’re the ones who hold the locks and keys.’ Or there’s the opposite—‘We have the power of organizing students on campus to activate change, to pressure for change, to force the administration to do things that they wouldn’t be comfortable saying yes to.’”

He said that while last year’s UC leaders, former president Danny P. Bicknell ’13 and former vice president Pratyusha Yalamanchi ’13, largely took the former approach, Raghuveer and Zhu have opted for the latter.

Goffard echoed Pollack’s pendulum metaphor.

“We’re swinging back towards...a more forceful [leadership] and not taking no as an answer, essentially,” he said. “I think Tara and Jen embody that kind of leadership.”

For her part, Raghuveer contests the notion that she has “challenged” or been “adversarial” towards the administration. However, she agrees that the Council has been focusing this semester on being responsive and assertive on certain campus-wide issues—particularly after the passage of three student referenda in the November election that put her into office.

“I have spent a lot of time this semester sort of reflecting on what my role should be, and my role should not be to communicate on behalf of the administration to students,” Raghuveer said. “Given the mandate of the election, my role is really to be an advocate for students.”

LIVING THE SLOGAN

Raghuveer and Zhu earned the UC presidency on a platform that sought to “demand relevance.” In their first semester at the helm of the organization, they have concluded that they can only be relevant to the student body by more aggressively pressuring administrators in response to undergraduate concerns.

In February, when an anonymous Crimson op-ed written by a student with schizophrenia sparked the organization of a rally urging the University to take action on mental health, Raghuveer sent an email urging students to join her at the gathering.

“If ever the UC were to ‘demand relevance,’ it would be acting on this issue,” Raghuveer said at a UC general meeting several days later, where the Council voted to pass legislation calling for mental health dialogue.

These two events set the stage for a UC-sponsored mental health town hall in early March, where Harvard affiliates were given the chance to ask questions directly to representatives from Student Mental Health Services and the Administrative Board.

Pollack said he thinks the Council’s visible and vocal responses to campus mental health activism and the events in the week following the Boston Marathon bombings have spurred positive discussion among students about the Council, something he has never seen before.

“I can personally say, as the person that runs the Facebook page, we’ve gotten more shares and likes than we’ve ever gotten,” Pollack said.

Kate E. Meakem ’14, president of Phillips Brooks House Association, said that although the wide diversity of interests within the student body makes it difficult to clearly determine a single definition of relevance, she personally believes Raghuveer and Zhu have put the UC more in touch with student concerns.

“[Tara and Jen have] been purposeful in making sure that student voices are heard, especially for greater awareness on mental health issues and sending out that email during the Boston bombings,” Meakem said.

DIFFERENT APPROACH, SAME RESULTS

Administrators say they listen to students and make changes based in part on what they hear.

“College administrators meet with the UC leadership regularly, and we are in almost daily contact,” Jeff Neal, a spokesperson for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an emailed statement. “At the same time, the College reviews policies and procedures after every incident or issue and makes adjustments based both on student feedback and on these regular evaluations.”

According to D. E. Lorraine Sterritt, the College dean for administration, Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds maintains close contact with the UC.

“She meets regularly with the leadership of the Undergraduate Council to confer on their initiatives and to understand the priorities of the student body as expressed through that organization,” Sterritt wrote in an email.

But often times, these conversations do not lead to administrative action.

On widely supported referendum questions calling for divestment and sexual assault policy reform, the UC and administrators have not moved beyond the discussion table.

Although Raghuveer explained that mental health “continues to be on every agenda for [her and Zhu’s] meetings with College administrators,” there have yet to be any policy changes.

And after revelations that administrators had secretly searched the email accounts of resident deans as they sought to trace a leak of information related to the Government 1310 cheating case, the UC voted in April to express “tremendous concern” over the searches, calling for clarification of the existing student email privacy policy. That clarification never came.

And when the University’s changes have aligned with the UC’s objectives, administrators have not confirmed whether the changes were in response to pressure from the Council.

In December, just weeks after the passage of the referendum calling for the establishment of a social choice endowment fund, University President Drew G. Faust announced that one would be created. She said in a statement that the decision was based on support from both students and alumni, but she did not mention the UC.

NO LEVERAGE

UC representatives recognize that at a fundamental level, they are not able to cause change directly.

Leverett House Representative Aaron E. Watanabe ’14 said that when the Council asks for policy changes their success is controlled largely by the administration.

“We don’t have lots of money, we don’t have control over admissions, there aren’t ways for us to directly effect policy change,” Watanabe said.

He also pointed out that the UC is not the only group—and certainly not the most powerful one—that asks to be heard by the administration.

“They have a number of other constituencies. Their alumni, other administrators, there’s the [Harvard] Corporation, there’s the faculty,” Watanabe said. “There are more powerful constituencies than the UC or students in general.”

UC representatives have responded to their perceived powerlessness by taking either a nihilistic approach or a hopeful one.

In the November election, Spenser R. Goodman ’14 and Darren C. McLeod ’14 ran unsuccessfully for the positions of UC president and vice president on a platform calling solely for the improvement of social life. The candidates eschewed working with or pressuring administrators for change, suggesting that such efforts were a lost cause.

“Being a voice for students is great, but it doesn’t mean anything when that voice is never heard,” Goodman wrote in his profile on the campaign’s website.

But Raghuveer said she will not claim she can solve long-term, systemic policy issues by the end of her term precisely because of the complicated nature of these issues and the bureaucratic nature of the University. Rather, she said, by pressuring administrators now and convincing future leaders to continue that pressure, she believes that something eventually will have to change.

“If someone isn’t constantly pushing the button on something...the energy totally dissipates,” Raghuveer said.

—Staff writer Steven S. Lee can be reached at stevenlee@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @StevenSJLee.