Q&A: Luke R. Heine ’17 and Stephen A. Turban ’17

Do you support modifying Harvard's current sexual assault and misconduct policy to include affirmative consent?

We definitely believe that the majority of student opinion is behind including an affirmative consent clause. We both have friends who have felt like the university has not treated their instances with the responsiveness that they deserve. To a large extent, we think that including affirmative consent will make the university more responsive when these reports are put forth.

Do you believe the UC can increase its yearly budget by 50 percent or more by the time you graduate?

Increasing the term bill by 40 dollars per a student (from $75 to $110) is entirely reasonable. This is comparable to many of our peer institutions (Stanford, Yale, MIT) who have activity fees that range from $100-$220 per a student. This should be a serious priority of the Undergraduate Council and the administration, for students clearly see extracurricular as a large part of their Harvard experience.

Do you support allowing the UC to fund alcohol through its general grants?

We believe that clubs should have the choice to throw whatever social event they feel fit. From the early ’90s until 2008, the UC did fund alcohol through its general grants (called a "party grant"). This policy was intended to create a more diverse social scene at Harvard (where the UC helps smaller clubs throw the social events that they'd like).

What is a major way in which you will differ from Gus and Sietse’s approach to running the Council?

The both of us are very interested in rearranging some of the procedures/structure of the UC. Though Gus and Sietse have changed the outward face of the UC, they haven't done much internally (we still follow by parliamentary procedure, we have the same meeting structure, etc.). If we want to make the UC work for the student body, we have to make the UC work for the UC members.

How often do you think students should have to sign an affirmation of integrity under the College’s new honor code?

So, there is a lot of research that shows that signing an affirmation of integrity agreement before taking a test reduces cheating. Similarly, however, there is research that shows that if you sign an honor agreement publicly at the beginning of the year this often increases the amount of academic dishonesty. To be realistic, signing an affirmation of integrity before every major test seems like a good middle ground between the two proposals.

Would you have supported a referendum question calling on the Council to reform its structures and do away with electing representatives based on houses and yards?

This is a fascinating piece of legislation that raises an interesting question: how do we identify ourselves on campus? We think this is a really interesting conversation to have, though we do have one contention. If we do restructure how we elect representatives, we have to also think about logistics, and the advantage of having one smaller area that you represent means that you can get to know the people you represent and you know who exactly to campaign for.