Forcing a Student-Faculty Showdown

In their successful bid for president and vice president of the Undergraduate Council this spring, candidates Robert M. Hyman '98 and Lamelle D. Rawlins '99 ran on a platform of revitalized student government, actively pushing the administration to be responsive to undergraduate concerns.

We have the right to participate as partners in our education," the Hyman/Rawlins statement read. "We demand that the University begin to use its most under-used resource, student input."

The combatively activist spirit that seized the council this semester has drawn the antipathy of the Faculty. The outspoken council members appear to have done more to antagonize the University's professors than advance students' concerns.

"I've found [their questions] quite annoying," says Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman. "I actually think the rule should be changed to prohibit students from asking questions during the question period."

At the December meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS), the Undergraduate Council Publicly challenged the professors and the administration on their own turf, over the issue of the creation of a Standing Committee on Public Service.

At the meeting, Council Treasurer Edward B. Smith III '97, unhappy with some aspects of the proposal, put forward a revised version, one he believed better represented the students.

"I felt it was necessary for the students to have a comment, even an unsolicited one, on the contents of the proposal," Smith says.

But the council members unwittingly wreaked havoc with the delicate parliamentary procedures of Faculty meetings.

In this instance, faculty members were willing to lend the council's proposal a helping hand on procedural issues. But in the subsequent months, as Faculty-student relations deteriorated, council members have continued to use the meeting as a forum for pushing their cause.

Now, the Faculty is angry and the council frustrated. And little progress is being made one issues of concern to both parties.

The Outspoken Council

At Faculty meetings since December, council representatives have raised the issues of section size and the hiring of women faculty, requested guarantees that the College will maintain need-blind admissions and, most recently, requested an explanation of the Faculty Council's rejection of Smith's public service proposals.

By speaking out at Faculty meetings, council members say they are trying to better serve their constituents.

The questions and comments are "simply indicative of our desire to serve as advocates of students," Rawlins says.

Meanwhile, council members remain largely ignorant of Faculty meeting procedures, which are governed by a rule book and advised by a parliamentarian. Council representatives have violated these rules and ignored protocol, sometimes not even dressing properly for the meetings.

In March, John B. Fox Jr. '59, secretary to the Faculty, wrote a letter to the council advising the members of their violations, principally that only students on Faculty-student committees were permitted to address the meeting and then only on matters relevant to their committees. At previous meetings, questions had primarily been raised by council executives rather than committee members.

"I would encourage you and your colleagues to be in touch with this office before rising matters on the Faculty floor, lest you jeopardize the courtesy [of] the chair [President Neil L. Rudenstine]," Fox wrote in the letter.

At the May 7 meeting, a frustrated Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles angrily referred the public service questions of Marco B. Simons '97 to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68. When Simons persisted, Knowles curtly responded, "My answer stands."

"I tried politely to answer the first set of questions in April, believing that the students were not aware of the proper procedure," Knowles says. "I was less flexible when the same thing occurred on May 7th."

Faculty Response

In addition to procedural problems, faculty members have also questioned the forum that council members have chosen.

"I don't think that it is necessary in Faculty meetings for two students to press their view of what's on their mind," says Lawrence Professor of Engineering Frederick H. Abernathy.

Council members say their questions are not "two students" voicing their own views, but rather council representatives advocating the views of the student body.

Faculty members say that they do appreciate and desire student input--in the right forum.

"Their voices matter a lot, to the degree that they contribute thoughtfully and have done their homework," says Professor of Government and of Sociology Theda Skocpol.

"Students can best make headway with faculty by talking quietly with them, or in small committee forums," Skocpol says. "They will often find sympathy from key faculty members if they take that route rather than the public grandstanding route."

But students say they use Faculty meetings as a forum for discussion only because other avenues have not worked.

"We bring up questions in Faculty meetings when we have no other choice," Simons says. "Faculty meetings are our only institutional contact with Dean Knowles."

But both Rawlins and Simons admit that this advocacy has not been terribly effective and indicate that the council needs more institutional contact with the administration.

Hyman, Simons, Smith and Rawlins recently presented a letter to Knowles requesting a visitor's seat on the Faculty Council, but Knowles has not yet formally responded.

Rawlins says the student-faculty committees, the sanctioned means for students to address Faculty meetings, "cannot provide all the voicing of students opinion." Rawlins alleges that these committees often act on their own prerogative, not on student interest, or are bypassed altogether.

For instance, when Lewis recently proposed a change to the College's medical leave policy, the changes were taken to a Faculty committee after the Faculty Council had already approved them and were then presented more for the committee's information than for debate.

"If we had a choice," says Smith, "We wouldn't be standing up in Faculty meetings and disrupting the normal order of business."