UC Passes Bill To Up Number of Reps

In its final meeting of the semester, the Undergraduate Council voted last night to pass the UC Reform Act, which alters its constitution to increase the body’s size from 35 to 51 representatives.

The vote—26-6-2—comes on the heels of a semester’s worth of discussion and debate sparked by a set of recommendations issued by the Dowling Committee, which was charged last spring with reviewing student governance and issued a report this March proposing reforms.

This legislation, which adopts some of the Dowling Committee’s suggestions with respect to UC internal structure, raises the number of Council representatives per district—Houses for upperclassmen and clusters of dormitories for freshmen—from two to three.

“The Council will be doing more because we’ll have a third rep per district,” said UC Parliamentarian Eric N. Hysen ’11, a main proponent of the Act.

The Act also increases the number of standing committees within the Council from two—the Finance Committee and the Student Affairs Committee—to five. The Finance Committee will still exist, but some responsibilities will be delegated to other committees.

The Student Affairs Committee will be split into the Student Life Committee and the Education Committee. The Student Relations Committee—which was created as an ad hoc committee in the first piece of legislation this semester—will also be institutionalized. A Student Initiatives Committee will also be formed to run programs such as UC TKTS, which raffles off free tickets every week to campus and local events.

“The most significant change is that we’re making it the business of the Council to work with student-run programs that will help student life,” said Hysen, who is also on The Crimson’s IT board, in reference to the stated responsibilities of the new Student Initiatives Committee.

These changes will take effect when the Council meets again next semester.

Former UC Vice President Randall S. Sarafa ’09, who was a member of the Dowling Committee, voted against the legislation, saying it “pre-empted any reform at the College and University level.”

“It’s unfortunate to see this reform being passed because it creates undue bureaucracy within the UC,” Sarafa said. “It will make the UC more inefficient and more opaque to student interests and student needs.”

For the first 30 minutes of the meeting, the UC listened to a presentation about the University’s endowment from President Drew G. Faust, who was unable to attend last week’s town hall with Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith and Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds.

Later in the meeting, the Council voted to allocate $3,000 of the surplus money in its Operations Fund to house student staffers for the UC’s recently-announced capital campaign, which aims to raise funds to purchase a student community center. At present, talks on this front have focused on the multimillion dollar 45 Mt. Auburn St. property that currently houses the Democracy Center.

According to Senan Ebrahim ’12, the UC hired four students—Abel Acuna ’11, Dana M. Kase ’11, Christopher G. Kleinhen ’10, and Winnie J. Liu ’11—out of about 30 applicants to staff its capital campaign over the summer.

—Staff writer Brittany M. Llewellyn can be reached at bllewell@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.