Sophomore Ticket Brings Levity and Ambition

It’s a dreary Wednesday afternoon outside of Annenberg, and Undergraduate Council presidential candidate Luke R. Heine ’17’s inflatable pool has sprung a leak.

As Heine hurriedly patches the hole, his running mate Stephen A. Turban ’17 sprints across the Science Center Plaza, without his signature bowtie but clutching campaign flyers for the horde of students about to file out of Computer Science 50.

Aside from the unexpected leak, the pool works perfectly. It wins laughs, stares, and a photo with former Microsoft CEO Steven A. Ballmer ’77, who is visiting campus to announce a major donation. The pool is the latest in a series of stunts aimed to increase the ticket’s visibility, and Heine and Turban are basking in the attention.

“This is what dreams are made of,” laughs Heine, applying a thick white coat of sunscreen to his nose.

Though they’re both veterans of the UC, Heine and Turban are emphasizing their differences from the rest of the Council. The two sophomores say the UC needs to remember its mission by focusing less on its internal parliamentary procedures and more on the students it supports.

POWER COUPLE

Heine, a computer science concentrator from Minnesota, and Turban, an economics concentrator from Missouri, met each other visiting Yale University’s program in Singapore when they were high school seniors. Both joined the UC during their freshman year, and both have been active in extracurricular life. Heine is a First-Year Outdoor Program leader, and Turban is a counselor with Room 13 and a teaching fellow for CS50.

Heine’s friends called him a natural leader whose enthusiasm is second to none.

Heine’s roommate, Matthew J. O’Connor ’17, said that Heine’s genuine devotion to the student body differentiates his ticket.

“Because he cares so much, he will dedicate the time [to the UC], has dedicated the time, and I imagine he will always do so,” O’Connor said.

By Matthew W DeShaw

Turban’s friends praise his ability to seemingly give 100 percent of his energy to all his commitments.

“Whether it’s just getting an organization to be more efficient and run more smoothly or getting people to notice something, Stephen’s full of awesome ideas,” said Lily H. Zhang ’17, who worked with Turban to organize a multinational flash mob to raise awareness of malaria.

Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67, whom both Heine and Turban cite as a mentor, said that the ticket shows promise “in a field of extraordinarily talented candidates.”

“I think they are high-energy, absolutely committed to making Harvard better, able to galvanize interest in their peers, and very thoughtful about initiatives that would make a real difference,” he said.

LEVELLING THE FIELD

Despite Dingman’s words of praise, Heine and Turban acknowledged that some may consider their ticket premature, as both candidates are sophomores in a race full of juniors. Still, Heine and Turban argued that their relative youth is not a disadvantage.

“I think the UC can be run by anyone who is willing to work hard, is someone who really cares about other people, and is someone who connects with administration,” Turban said.

While a two-sophomore ticket has never captured the presidency, Heine’s FOP co-leader Elizabeth W. Pike ’15 said that Heine’s ability to connect with students across all classes would benefit the UC.

“He comes at everything with fresh eyes, and is really excited to make everything better,” said Pike, an inactive Crimson editor. “He’s gotten to know so many people on this campus already that he’s tapped into many different perspectives.”

In a year when every other ticket includes at least one woman and one person of color, Heine and Turban also acknowledged that a pair of white males may seem unrepresentative of a heterogeneous student body. However, Heine argued that these criticisms overlook less visible aspects of diversity.

“When we constrain diversity to a race, a creed, a location, I think that is an oversimplified metric of what diversity is,” he said. “I grew up in northern Minnesota, which is a very rural location. I actually thought the Ivy League was pretty uptight and pretentious, and I was going to go wherever the financial aid was the best. Just because I’m a white male doesn’t mean I lived a life of privilege at all.”

Heine and Turban have advocated for a major change to UC policy that, they said, will encourage the type of inclusion that they’re working for: they want the Council to resume funding alcohol for student groups, a practice which ceased in 2008.

“It’s about building a more inclusive Harvard, which is one of the world’s most exclusive clubs as is,” Heine said. “We want to make inclusive spaces where people can have a good time, where people can really connect with their class and build a community.”

Heine and Turban hope to use UC-funded alcohol to lessen disparities in funding among social groups and clubs.

“I don’t think there should be a shadow of socioeconomic background in how successful your club is,” Heine said. “Harvard is all about levelling the playing field and making it a meritocracy.”

A LITTLE LEVITY

Watching Heine and Turban mug for a photo with a very amused Ballmer, one thing is clear: while their aims may be serious, the two plan to have a good time getting there.

“Our primary goal is not concerned with winning,” Heine said. “Turbs and I want to have a meaningful campaign, but we want to have a lot of fun doing it.”

The desire to entertain earned the disapproval of the UC Election Commission last week, when the candidates were fined $15 for replacing dining hall bulletins with copies containing watermarked campaign ads.

Heine said that the infusion of comedy was aimed at making the Council more approachable.

“Before [Samuel B. Clark ’15 and Gus A. Mayopoulos ’15] ran, I personally was not a huge fan of the UC. I thought it was a bunch of resume stuffing,” he said. “But by bringing humor into the equation, it became a conversation.”

Turban added that some of the Council’s procedures serve little purpose.

“We often vote on voting, which is a bizarre procedure in itself. There are plenty of great student groups that show that you don’t need a rigid set of rules to have a student organization,” he said.

O’Connor said that the pair’s unorthodox campaign strategies should not undermine the ticket’s legitimacy.

“I would say that this is very far from a joke ticket; it’s one of the more serious tickets going,” he said. “The UC is not going to get that much publicity unless you do slightly outrageous things.”