Harvard and the NSA

Although the National Student Association has never been a very significant force in the College, there is reason to urge the Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs to keep the College within the NSA. The NSA deals with many domestic and international issues, and Harvard is in a position to contribute to the Association's work.

The important question before the HCUA tonight should not be whether Harvard will remain in the NSA, but how to select the College's representatives to the annual NSA Congress. In addition, the council might reflect on how Harvard can most effectively relate to the organization.

The NSA attempts to make students aware of the educational and social issues which affect them, in the hope that such concern will lead to creative action. The National Student Congress each summer serves the NSA's educational purposes by providing a forum for student opinion on important issues which face the student community--from in loco parentis and the House Committee on Un-American Activities to civil rights, the aims of education, and nuclear testing. Throughout the year, the national and regional NSA bodies conduct conferences and seminars on such issues as academic freedom, neo-colonialism, and race relations in north and south.

In addition to its programs of domestic action, such as its cooperation with the Northern Student Movement and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the NSA does important work in international relations. Its Foreign Student Leadership Project brings foreign student leaders to the United States for brief or extended visits of travel and study. NSA's leadership in the International Student Conference, which is comprised of numerous national unions of students, enables the Association to influence foreign students--who are often political leaders--in a way that governmental and other agencies can not.

NSA has failed to exert a real influence at Harvard largely because many of its educational purposes are achieved through political groups, publications, and the critical-reflective atmosphere of the College itself. But since this atmosphere does not exist on many American campuses, NSA can play an important role in the educational process at other schools. In the past, Harvard has often made significant contributions to the development of NSA and to its programs; the College continues to be in the vanguard of the organization. Harvard students are national and regional officers; and the University's faculty and physical facilities are resources often tapped for NSA programs and conferences. Harvard's ability to lead and challenge others makes it of great value to the Association.

It is unfortunate that those who oppose Harvard's membership in the NSA base their opposition on NSA's concern with "political questions not relevant to student government." The argument is spurious in the first place because political questions may affect students as well as any other group in society. As Marc J. Roberts '64, chairman of the National Executive Committee of the NSA, has explained, "The purpose of the NSA is not to dabble in politics, but to get students to think and act about issues which affect them." Policies such as the NSA's call for the abolition of the House Un-American Activities Committee are relevant to students because they involve academic freedom.

But the argument against political questions is especially unfortunate because it reflects an attitude that the NSA and Harvard are--and should be--trying to overcome. In comparison to students in other countries, American students have shown little concern for social and political issues. Such an attitude can hardly be viewed as healthy for the future development of American democracy. Rather than narrow the range of issues which affect "students in their role as students," the NSA should further the discussion of political questions.

The HCUA has no cause to think that its "non-political" nature should prevent it from acting as the agency for Harvard's affiliation with the NSA. The positions and activities of NSA cannot be linked to either the HCUA or to Harvard, for the NSA Congress does not record a school's vote on a given issue unless a school specifically asks that its vote be registered. The old Student Council was not killed because of its involvement with a political NSA, but because it was riven by its own peculiar brand of internal, personal politics. Finally, if the HCUA objects to the expense of NSA dues, which amount to about ten per cent of the Council's annual budget, the local NSA administrators have already proposed to raise the funds themselves and are confident that money can be obtained without much difficulty.

The HCUA ought to think long and hard on the problem of choosing the College's delegation to the National Student Congress. Election of delegates by the College at large might be an exercise in democracy, but lack of student interest in the NSA would probably make such an election a popularity contest and a farce. Although the problem of finding an adequate method of selecting delegates warrants further study by the Council, the present system should be maintained until a better one is found. Past Councils have usually succeeded in choosing qualified delegations from the candidates interested enough to submit petitions.

The NSA certainly has its faults. It has failed to communicate its concerns to the individual student on most campuses, and the Association suffers inevitably from inexperience and rapid turn-over in leadership. But NSA has undoubtedly accomplished a great deal in international relations and in civil rights; its greatest challenge remains the educational one. Harvard should contribute its unique resources to the NSA's continuing campaign for student awareness, a campaign which will benefit not only the University, but the whole nation.