Student-Faculty Symposium Avoids Proposal for Student Government

The student-Faculty symposium called by leaders of the Harvard Policy Committee and the Harvard Undergraduate Council ended yesterday without endorsing any specific proposals about student government, Instead, individual participants will contribute proposals to be included in a pamphlet which will be presented at an open meeting on Wednesday, February 12.

The symposium, which met during intersession, began with separate conferences on the roles of students in the university--education, social life, and administrative decision-making--but it ended by concentrating most of its energies on suggestions for change in the form of student government.

Timothy D. Gould '69, one of the organizers of the symposium, said he will definitely organize a political union, to be called the Coalition for a Democratic University, to continue discussion of "changes more basic to the university." The union's steering committee will be composed of students from the symposium, graduate students, faculty members and interested students in the Houses where chapters of the Coalition are formed. Gould hopes to begin with chapters in Adams and Dunster Houses.

Total Student Participation

Jay S. Epstein '69 proposed a reorganization of student government with parallel student committees for all Faculty committees concerned with student affairs. He also asked for student representation of Faculty committees and for a jurisdictional board to channel issues and proposals to the various committees. The board would be composed of the heads of each committee.

As far as there was any coherence in the symposium views, they were summarized by Gould's and Epstein's proposals, according to Mary K. Tolbert '69, secretary of the HPC.

Lance E. Lindblom '70, an HUC member, disagreed. The symposium's purpose had been to suggest a redistribution of power in favor of students to handle issues such as ROTC on which the Faculty and students fundamentally disagree, Lindblom said. He suggested parallel committees topped by a student senate elected at large with proportional representation. The senate's decisions should be final unless overruled by a two-thirds Faculty vote, according to Lindblom.

Symposium

The symposium often split on whether the fundamental decision-making problem at Harvard is lack of communication or the mislocation of power. One participant referred to the question as "power through justification" versus "justification through power."

Dean Glimp, Mrs. Mary I. Bunting, and Archie C. Epps, Assistant Dean of Harvard College, attended meetings of the symposium usually as witnesses and observers rather than as participants.