For Many UC Hopefuls, Humor Is a Touchstone

Last year they wanted thicker toilet paper and more soup. Now, they’ve swapped out the quality tissues for an infinity supply, and the soup for faster dripping water.

When it comes to Undergraduate Council elections, joke tickets are nothing new. But for a growing group of UC hopefuls—fueled by the surprise victory of UC President Gus A. Mayopoulos ’15 last year—humor has become the go-to strategy to separate themselves from this year’s sometimes crowded field.

Aisha Bhoori ’18 is one of those candidates. Her platform promises to apply Beyonce lyrics to solve campus issues ranging from “bureaucratic partition” of the College to the limited supply of toilet paper freshmen may acquire per visit to Weld Hall.

Vying for a spot in Ivy Yard, the second most competitive district in this year’s elections, Bhoori admits she is not the most serious candidate on the ballot. Others among this year’s 103 candidates across the College pledge to take on issues like recent changes to the Q Guide, the climate surrounding sexual assault on campus, and limited dining hall hours. But she says her focus is on combating the “seriousness and perfection” that she sees at Harvard and in the UC, anyway.

Though Bhoori had not even been admitted to the College when Mayopoulos and his running mate Samuel B. Clark ’15 were elected in November 2013, she points to the duo and their tomato basil ravioli soup platform as inspiration.

“It made me realize that I think the student body on campus is kind of tired of candidates who promise these very lofty goals and kind of take themselves too seriously, and that humor might be the best approach in underscoring what needs to be done,” she says.

David P. Frankle ’18, who is also running for one of three spots in Ivy Yard, likewise admits to looking to Mayopoulos and Clark’s victory as a source for his platform.

Referencing the soup again, Frankle says he has decided to focus on what he sees as a similarly small, but important concern—increasing the speed at which water is dispensed in Annenberg. The carbonated water, Frankle says, seems to flow “significantly faster” than the non-carbonated. The relative slowness causes buildups in dining hall lines, according to Frankle.

And while he says he’s serious about representing his fellow undergraduates and has dedicated a lot of time to canvassing votes, he “definitely tried to focus on the smaller things” and to promote an attitude of “approachability” around the UC.

Others have seized a different lesson from the Clark-Mayopoulos model, using humor and spectacle to separate themselves from the bureaucratic “UC establishment”—or at least the notion that there is such a thing.

Dunster House resident Sriram V. Pendyala ’15, who served on the Council last year, wrote in his platform that “although I've been in the UC  since February, you shouldn’t think of me as a UC insider mostly because I’m not cool enough to be one.”

Luke R. Heine ’17, another incumbent from Cabot House, says he openly acknowledges his work in the UC last year while campaigning, but goes farther, insisting that those who use the term “UC insider” only perpetuate a bureaucracy in the body that he does not believe to exist.

Instead, Heine says he is trying to cast the UC as what it is: a student government rather than a body with larger authority. That has also led him to campaign under seemingly non-traditional measures, in one instance sitting in a pool in the middle of Radcliffe Quadrangle to garner attention.

Voter interest, he says, hinges on “aesthetic intrigue.”

—Staff writer Noah J. Delwiche can be reached at noah.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ndelwiche.