Playground Follies

The story is convoluted, as usual, and nauseating, as usual. And, as so many convoluted and nauseating stories seem to be these days, it's about the Undergraduate Council.

At its core are the usual suspects, council chair Michael P. Beys '94 and secretary Randall A. Fine '96. This time, our villains attempt to control the council elections by withholding information about the deadline for candidacy applications. Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III gets wind of the dastardly scheme when would-be candidates wander into his office wondering how they can run.

Meanwhile, other council executives left out of the carefully selected Beys/Fine cabal pipe up to complain that they haven't been invited to executive board meetings that Beys and Fine have already held. And it turns out that Beys and Fine, by running the elections when they might run for executive office themselves, have violated a conflict of interest rule that the council passed just last spring.

In short, this story is about how some student government representatives think the council is a playground, and how said representatives engage in their continuing quests to be kings of the jungle gym.

It provides a lot of entertainment. But in the end, it's much more sad than funny.

The problem with Beys' and Fine's behavior is that it undermines the effort of those council members who are well-intentioned, competent and responsible.

When council candidates' posters acknowledge the organization's ineffectiveness ("The UC Sucks, And I Suck For Wanting To Be On It"), you know there's something wrong with the status quo. The council is now little more than a forum for the power-politics games of real-life-politician wannabes.

Contrary to the apparent beliefs of Beys and Fine and other political aspirants, the council was not created for that purpose. It was supposed to be an undergraduate organizations, a forum for students to have a voice in the College's administrative affairs, a way of implementing change.

In recent years, the council has intermittently made gains in those directions. Unfortunately, it is now too embroiled in its own internal workings--a college-wide committee to review the council's structure and two internal scandals and counting this year--to make any headway on the campus front.

Which is a shame. Some have excellent reasons for joining the council: They want to address specific residential or academic problems, they hope to have a hand in planning activities for the College, they're interested in being part of a real government that provides real services for the student body.

An organization that the student body perceives as a running joke can't do much in the way of effecting change. And if students fail to take the council seriously, they won't support the council's efforts, and they won't acknowledge its accomplishments. As the trend toward jadedness continues, fewer and fewer of the well-intentioned will actually run.

There's a risk, too, of losing clout with administrators. Many of the undergraduates who serve on College and Faculty committees, such as the recent committee on ROTC, come from council ranks. As the council loses credibility, we could conceivably lose a student voice in other policy affairs.

If the council's corruption games continue, Harvard will have, in effect, no student government. But it will still have quite a few students who are interested in being representatives. Too bad a few troublemakers are crowding everyone else off the blacktop.