The Need for Unity

Student influence on administration decisions and policy--a remarkable concept here at Harvard. Most of us, I think, are agreed on the general principle that people ought to have some say in the governance of the society in which they live; this is the democratic principle. We live at Harvard; we work at Harvard; we play at Harvard; we learn at Harvard; we spend our money to help support Harvard. It seems reasonable then, that we ought to have our opinions considered when it comes to making policy and decisions concerning the way things run at Harvard.

But, there is more to this statement than meets the eye. Most policy decisions are made through a process which does seem to account for consideration of student opinion. Students are represented on nearly all of the committees which have much to do with governing Harvard. The key, however, is "represented"; by any standards our "representation" amounts to tokenism. Our numbers are always small, and only on advisory committees do we seem to be allowed other than non-voting representatives.

Indeed, the recent history of results says something more about our effectiveness--based not only on our "representation" on these committees, but also on our ad-hoc attempts at expressing our opinions and making them felt. I need only point to the Engelhard Library, divestiture, Brustein or the Core as a few examples to demonstrate the truth of this.

It is clear that the pattern which has developed concerning student influence on administration decisions and policy has been one of frustration. At least, in the cases of the CRR and now the ACSR, students are resisting co-optation by boycott. But as I said before, the committee system is not the only problem. We lack experience, ideas and inspiration--more than this, we lack any sense of unity at all.

What is meant by sense of unity is not, of course, total unity of opinion. This would be impossible to expect between two people, let alone among Harvard students as a group. The key is that students who do agree that there is a problem in a particular area or that a particular issue ought to be raised and dealt with, must find each other. The benefits of mutual support and encouragement, synthesis of ideas, and organization and pooling of resources and energy would be great. Perhaps students who did find each other in such a manner would be able to accomplish something outside the framework of the current committee system. (In fact, one group of students might work to begin changing such an unrepresentative system--you can bet that the impetus for this could never come from within.)

The problem thus reduces to finding a way of bringing students together--not, as student government would do, on the basis of elected students who profess a nondescript interest in "governance"--but on the basis of interest in a more narrow issue or area. In the past, no such mechanism has existed at Harvard.

Now, apparently, one has arrived, and students who are interested in student voice and progress in any issue area, would be making a very grave mistake to let it slip away. The mechanism is associated with the "Little Eleven" (meaning, the Ivy League Schools, Stanford and the University of Chicago) Intercollege Conference; the conference is something which we should all latch onto.

At first, the concept of a conference to bring students from 11 different schools together must seem like a quantum leap from the type of unity I'd been referring to before. However, in association with the lack of unity which I perceived, I noted that we also lack experience, ideas and inspiration. We must not forget that other schools face and have faced many similar problems. By bringing students from different schools together, the conference helps to alleviate the lack of experience and ideas which--separately--students at each of the schools seem to feel. They have solved problems which we still face; we have solved problems which they still face. The potential of exchange of such information is immeasurable.

Aside from the future potential of new ideas which the conference will provide us with, the conference will, and to some extent already has, created an "us" to do something with these ideas. This is the inspiration element. The conference is organized around eight committees: Academics, Student Life, Tuition, Financial Aid and Admissions, Extracurricular Activities, Women's Affairs, Minority Affairs, Student Government and Student-Faculty-Administration Relations, and The Role of the University in Social and Political Problems. The eight committees will discuss the role, nature and extent of student opinion and input into administration policy and decisions in each of these areas. But these conference committees have spurred the formation of parallel committees at Harvard. These committees are the perfect opportunity for interested students to find each other and begin working; membership on each of the committees is always open to any Harvard-Radcliffe undergraduate.

What is important is that now each of these Harvard-Radcliffe committees will not only have the benefit of the collective expertise, energy and ideas of its own mambers, but also the information and ideas from the conference committees themselves. For each of the Harvard-Radcliffe committees will select from among its members those students who will attend the conference.

What about unsolved issues? What of problems which all schools still face? For this, the conference is a unique framework for planning and executing joint action and statements. The increased effectiveness of such action and statements is a benefit conferred upon all of the individuals through their unity. As Vicky Mead, a Cornell student, wrote in the Cornell student newspaper concerning the conference: "One recalls the tale of Rapunzel, who let down her golden hair--although rather than climbing up or down our ivory towers, we propose simply to merge them."

The most fascinating aspect of all of this is that the conference is real--it does in fact exist and it will take place. Yes, it is not just an idea. In fact, other schools have already demonstrated widespread interest. The University of Pennsylvania has endorsed participation by a ratio of 1586 to 77 in a recent referendum. This represents the largest turnout ever for a vote of this kind at Penn. Brown has raised all of its money and selected all of its delegates. Cornell has over 100 people actively working on the conference. Stanford has nearly as many working on 11 different committees. Every school has raised some or all of its share of the costs.

Nearly 40 per cent of the total money needed for the conference has been already raised. The conference intends to pay transportation, lodging, preparation, organization, meeting room, and paper costs for 20 students from each school to attend the conference for four days (February 22-25) in Philadelphia. The total cost of the conference is $15,592; Harvard's share is $1518. Much of this remains to be raised.

So, in terms of fund-raising and in terms of organization, there is still much to be done. The conference, after all, is a unity of individuals. It is up to each one of us to see that Harvard's part of the conference does not fall through--the current state of affairs dictates that we need it too badly.

Mark Shlomchik '81 and Arthur Kyriazis '80-2 are helping to coordinate Harvard's part in next month's intercollegiate conference of the Ivy League Colleges. Stanford and the University of Chicago.