The U.C.: There's Hope Yet

Even though Cambridge is covered in an oppressively cold blanket of snow, little signs of life still pop up in the most unexpected places.

Like a delicate spring bud pushing through the frozen soil of its history, the Undergraduate Council is showing new signs of growth. Instead of the perennial infections that seem to stifle it--the circuses, the grandstanding, and the recently ridiculous PUCC platform--the council is finally working, through members Elizabeth A. Haynes '98 and Chandler F. Arnold '98, to rebuild the U.C.'s long-lost legitimacy in a way that should serve as a model for the rest of Harvard's unfocused student government.

Haynes and Arnold have organized a "Pinch the Grinch" charity drive, which encourages the Houses and first-year districts to compete with each other in giving to local charities, along the lines of the "Green Cup." The winner of the charity drive will receive a study break donated by both Harvard Dining Services and the council.

This sort of activity is just what our student government needs to rescue its credibility: The charity drive is clearly within the council's mandate and therefore tractable; it is not controversial and not confrontational; and it provides a tangible service to the community. Its psychological feeling is a far cry from the frivolity of poorly-attended live concerts and beer fests, from the divisiveness of ROTC debates, and from the hopelessness of council claims to give students voice in tenure decisions and university investment policy.

The charity drive brings students together under council auspices and can only leave them with greater confidence in the organization's competence--competence, that is, beyond the abilities of a glorified dance committee.

Small, sure successes like this project are the path to relevance for the Undergraduate Council. This is not a new message: this newspaper and this column in particular have been espousing it ad nauseam. We're glad some council members are finally foregoing the glory of institutionalized yelling-at-deans for a chance at some real accomplishment.

As students, we should encourage this type of activity for the Undergraduate Council. The council's structural ability to reach across all Houses and interest groups is best used not to further its members' agendas on controversial political issues, or to promise sweeping new student powers it can never hope to deliver. Instead, it should build consensus on safe issues to begin with--charity drives, improvement of shuttle bus services, even cuts in federal education funding--and win back the trust of the large masses of disaffected and disinterested students.

Once this large, long-term task is accomplished (it will certainly take much more than a couple of terms), then the council can lobby the administration for greater power, fortified by the interest and support of something more than the mere 19 percent of students who vote in council elections. Voting membership on committees which make binding decisions on issues of student life and greater control over council funding are two possible places to start.

But this begins with a well-organized, competently-run project like "Pinch the Grinch." It begins with two sophomore council members who don't fall into the pontificating, bombastic mode that has been the hallmark of the Undergraduate Council for what seems like centuries. It begins with students who will take the council's actions at face value, participate enthusiastically in its worthwhile projects, and invest their trust and commit their voices to a representative and credible organization.

This most recent sign of life doesn't sound like the Undergraduate Council I knew as a first-year; I know it isn't. But for the Class of '99, this reforming, recovering U.C. might inspire new hope. We should jealously protect this sprouting bud, cultivate it, coax it on to greatness despite the malnourished soils from which it springs. Good work. Elizabeth and Chandler.

Patrick S. Chung's column appears on alternate Saturdays. Happy Holidays to the guests of the Ascot Rhinoceros.