Don’t Clone the CLC

Believe it or not, the imminent dissolution of one-third of our student government is no cause for alarm. The Undergraduate Council’s (UC) new motion to scrap the Campus Life Committee (CLC), one of the council’s three standing committees, is one that we heartily endorse. The CLC’s successes—Movie Nights and shuttles—have been outnumbered by their more costly failures. Moreover, the way committee choice is based on UC election results means that the CLC is at least partially staffed with students that aren’t passionate about social events planning. Still, the question of how to replace the CLC looms large. The remedy is not, however, the creation of a new body to take on the CLC’s mission—which is precisely what the newly proposed legislation aims to establish.

The amendment, which is being proposed by UC leaders, calls for the creation of an independent Student Events Committee (SEC), whose job description sounds remarkably similar to that of the current CLC. We have little reason to believe that the SEC will substantially correct the failings of its predecessor, and we suggest instead that the proposed funding for the SEC be disseminated among House Committees (HoCos) and the First Year Social Committee (FYSC), as well as perhaps the ever-needy prefect program. Given the recent successes of the Office of the Dean of the College, we strongly encourage the office—with the appropriate amount of student input, of course—to continue taking on the task of organizing the occasional campus-wide event.

The SEC seems to have few advantages over the doomed CLC, and we fear that the differences between the two would be merely nominal. Last year’s Springfest Afterparty and the Havana on the Harbor cruise are two recent examples of ineffectual planning by the students of the CLC. Both of these failures stemmed from a combination of lack of input from the student body and uncontrollable bad weather. The organization of the SEC offers few clues to how its events would be more successful. Direct elections to the SEC might improve the enthusiasm of committee members by ensuring they all actually want to plan events. But the SEC will not be in any better a position to achieve the more important goal of gauging and responding to student interest for campus-wide events. The promise of a close bond between the SEC and University Hall does little to raise our hopes, since we have always assumed that UC committees would be well connected to the College.

Instead of replacing the CLC with a directly elected twin, the SEC, we recommend that the funding for campus-wide events be channeled to groups that can have the most impact on student life: HoCos and the FYSC. HoCo-planned events such as the Mather Lather and the Leverett 80s dance are among the best large-scale gatherings on this campus, and while the FYSC throws a fine Freshman Formal, it could do a lot more to unite the freshman class if it received greater funding. Intimately connected to student life through the physical connection of the Houses and freshman dorms, HoCos and the FYSC will be more responsive to what social events students are demanding, be they huge dances or intimate Stein Clubs. Additionally, their relatively smaller budgets will disincentivize huge expenditures on financially risky events, increasing accountability. House and dorm life—the perennial subject of complaints among students—will also benefit greatly from increased funding. On balance, HoCos and the FYSC will be more flexible, responsive, and motivated than any new body the UC creates.

When a truly campus-wide event is in order, we believe the Dean’s Office, working in consultation with students, is best suited to draw the whole student body together. The Harvard State Fair, which took place at the beginning of this semester, was a prime example of the Dean’s Office’s ability to plan successful events. With the closing of most of the dining halls, the Fair forced students, who might have been hesitant to leave their rooms, to venture outside and have a good time. We hope University Hall will put on two or three such events each year.

In short, we are glad the UC is acknowledging the flaws of the CLC, but we fear that the implementation of a similar system will merely postpone the necessary substantial change for a short while. We know that many CLC members are probably eyeing spots on the SEC, but we hope that individual ambition does not trump the interest of the student body. An honest reflection on the campus social dynamic reveals that HoCos, the FYSC, and the Dean’s Office are all in better positions to put together popular events than any group that claims to speak for all students.