Radcliffe at the Crossroads

Tomorrow afternoon a mass meeting at Radcliffe will make a decision on what is probably the most significant long-range proposal to face 'Cliffe voters in years. The proposal deals with a perennial Garden Street problem: financing extra-curricular activities. It suggests solving the problem by establishing for each undergraduate a compulsory $12 fee to cover a wide range of extra-curricular expenses, including News and Signature subscriptions, Student Government and Class dues, Idler tickets, and charges for two clubs.

The proponents of this compulsory Student Activities Fee have offered forceful and repeated reasons for its acceptance by the undergraduates. They say that passage of the plan would end for Radcliffe's undergraduate organizations the uncertainty and financial tight-rope walking which have so often prevailed in the past.

Those who back the proposal argue that a definite allotment to each activity at the beginning of every year would guarantee financial security and assure budget plans. In addition, they point out that forcing the entire student body to subscribe a total sum annually would reduce the cost of the activities to those who formerly subscribed to all of them.

The arguments of efficiency and security are strong ones, but they unfortunately have tended to obscure certain more significant issues. Fundamentally, the result of any compulsory Student Activities Fee is to submerge the ideas and wishes of individuals in favor of the stability of a group.

The girl who does not wish to attend Idler productions no longer has any choice in the matter; those who wished only one publication would have to subscribe to two; girls who might not have wanted to join any club would be forced to pay dues for two. The plan, in effect, acts in favor of lump spending rather than a critical choice of expenditures.

If the Activities Fee could accomplish, without reservation, its aim of ending the problems of Radcliffe extra-curricular organizations, then the submersion of individual choice might be worth the attempt. The fact is, however, that there are strong reservations to be made, that along with the security promised by the plan come two new evils which would counteract anything gained and more.

First effect of a compulsory Activities Fee would be the assumption of a subtle power by the people distributing the funds--whether the Student Government or the Administration. At other colleges throughout the country it has been proved consistently that making activities dependent on a general fund leads finally, despite good intentions, to some control by the administrative body that collects and dispenses the money and therefore feels some responsibility for the way it is spent. Limitations on the independence of the organizations must inevitably result.

The new security, in addition, might prove to be a dangerous opiate, lulling Radcliffe's organizations into a non-competitive mediocrity. If a publication knows that its subscribers are guaranteed, what incentive, what pressure remains on its editors to improve their efforts?

For a short time the fleeting ideal of public service might be enough to carry on the tradition, but in the long run a club or dramatic group or publication can maintain its standard only by continually striving to please the public to which it must sell memberships or tickets or subscriptions.

The compulsory Student Activities Fee is a proposal which carries tremendous import for future Radcliffe undergraduates. The voters at tomorrow's meeting should consider the issues carefully before committing themselves to so drastic a program.