New UC Leaders Outline Agenda for Semester

Responding to recent campus protests, newly elected Undergraduate Council President Shaiba Rather ’17 and Vice President Daniel V. Banks ’17 said the Council’s goals this semester will include repurposing a $30,000 grant, increasing administrative oversight of final clubs, and bolstering sexual assault prevention and mental health initiatives.

In an interview Wednesday, Rather and Banks, who campaigned on a platform dubbed “Open Harvard,” detailed their platform for the coming year. Rather and Banks assumed the presidency and vice presidency late last semester after winning a plurality of votes in a UC presidential election with the lowest turnout since 2011.

One of their first objectives is to reform the UC’s $30,000 Bridging and Belonging grant, which Council leaders acquired from the College in 2014 after a failed attempt to request $250,000 in additional funding. Although the grant is designed to fund events between student groups, Rather said it is underutilized.

“Looking back, a lot of our executive members feel it wasn’t utilized that well,” Rather said. “Students didn’t know about it, and there was a lot of hesitation about the fund.”

Rather and Banks said they hope to repurpose the grant by publicizing the funds to student leaders. They also will consider loosening application requirements for funding from the UC’s Finance Committee, a body that allocates about $300,000 to student extracurriculars and events.

“We want to empower students, so that they know what this money is for, and any idea that they have now has a venue to get funded,” Rather said.

Rather and Banks said they also plan to tackle issues around sexual assault prevention and final clubs in light of recent student protests and the University’s sexual assault survey data. They will meet with Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana next week, where they plan to gauge his response on their platform, Rather said.

“The UC President and Vice President are the chief advocates for the entire student body,” Banks said. “We want to bring the voices of students to the table.”

While Banks stressed the importance of representing members of final clubs during talks with administrators, he argued that administrators must hold the unrecognized groups accountable on gender-related issues. Administrators have recently pressured male final clubs into admitting women and publicly criticized the groups for alleged exclusivity.

“Harvard has a huge amount of power over final clubs because all of their members are students here,” Banks said. “We want to make sure they’re being responsible,” he added, referring to undergraduates in final clubs.

Within the Council itself, Rather and Banks said they hope to unify the UC’s seven committees under the goals the pair presented during the campaign, including mental health and freshman programming.

“Our committee chairs have taken pieces of our platform that they feel really passionate about and are starting conversations,” Rather said.

Rather and Banks also plan to switch the location of UC meetings throughout the semester. Last year, all UC meetings were held in Harvard Hall. By rotating rooms, the pair said, they hope more undergraduates who are not on the UC will attend the meetings, which are open to all students.

Recent campus protests and debates around final clubs, race relations, sexual assault, and mental health have shaped their goals, Rather and Banks said.

“The time period in which we ran and in which we will serve is unbelievably different than when Ava and Dhruv took office,” Rather said, referring to last year’s UC President Ava Nasrollahzadeh ’16 and UC Vice President Dhruv P. Goyal ’16. “That has shaped our entire platform and our goals for this year.”

–Staff writer Brian P. Yu can be reached at brian.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @brianyu28.