Student Government Coalition Breaks Out of Gate Quickly

Undergraduate protests at Harvard's Commencement exercises are practically an unofficial tradition by now. But the June demonstrations might take on a new twist this year if the newly formed Harvard Coalition of Student Leaders has its way.

The coalition of student representatives from the College and 10 graduate schools hopes to have graduating students from every school in the University don armbands in protest of the nuclear arms race.

Although the protest is not a major event in itself, the council's plans for commencement shows how the group could soon become a major force in student relations with President Bok and the administration.

The coalition is the brainchild of Lisa St. John, President of the School of Public Health Student Coordinating Committee. St. John invited representatives of the individual student governments to the first meeting and has since then acted as the group's chairman.

Coalition members have said that the group will better enable them to receive the University recognition about issues and problems that the individual governments have been unable to resolve.

13 Tubs

Harvard's policy of placing each school on its own financial and administrative footing has separated students enrolled in the different schools. Consequently, student leaders have had difficulty expressing student woes such as inadequate financial aid to the university.

The coalition, which has met three times since its inception in mid-March, has sent a letter to the Corporation calling for partial University divestiture from companies operating in South Africa. Members plan to meet with Bok next month to discuss school-wide financial aid policies and the role of student representation on student-faculty committees.

Credibility Gap

The group's small size and a lack of bureaucracy have resulted in smoothly run meetings, but the coalition still has a credibility problem.

Two schools--the Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Design--have yet to send delegates to the meetings, and the coalition has not decided how it will fund itself.

At last Monday's meeting, members agreed that each school will contribute "what it can" to the coalition to pay for administrative costs incurred between now and next fall.

But Daniel W. McDonald, president of the Kennedy School Student Association, said last week that he has received only short. notice before each of the council's meetings and could not make time to attend.

And though none of the individual student governments have opposed the idea of the umbrella organization, the members of the group still don't know what the coalition's status within the University will be. In fact, Business School Student Association President Neil Smith has abstained from voting several times because he had not discussed the issues at hand with his constituency.

Until the group can determine its exact relationship with the individual student governments, it will probably have to remain content with its status as an advisory body.

Unlike the Princeton University Council--which is comprised of undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and administrators--the Harvard group is as yet unrecognized by any non-student group. And Yale University has no permanent university-wide student group, although committees which include students and faculty from throughout the University have been convened from time to time, according to student government leaders.

Everybody's Got Problems

If anything has been learned from the group's meetings, it is that each school has its own problems and is hoping to use the coalition to back its fight.

John Chittick, president of the Ed School Student Association Cabinet, has repeatedly pushed for the group to act on the issue of financial aid and debt ceilings. The low debt ceilings at the Ed School relative to the rest of the University have forced students to drop out of the school, Chittick added.

Issues

Divestiture, which is a major issue at the College and the Divinity School, has not received as much attention elsewhere, and the anti-nuclear movement is less active in some of the schools than it is in others.

Although the coalition has broken quickly from the starting gate, organizational problems may soon begin to weigh it down. As one representative joked at last week's meeting: "Congratulation! We've given birth to another headache.