What Election?

Between all the chatter, all the matching t-shirts and signs in front of the Science Center, the “I Support” photos on facebook.com, the debates and op-eds (with illustrations) in various publications—not to mention, of course, newspaper endorsements—the Undergraduate Council (UC) presidential election is completely ubiquitous, and reaching fever pitch.

At first glance, this is a good thing, a signal of something positive. The campus is engaged in its politics, is invested in the institution of student government, and is inculcated with some level of civic virtue (or maybe healthy self-interest) that could easily translate into political engagement outside of the Harvard bubble. Nothing to complain about here; end of editorial.

Yet, in all the excitement, it’s quite easy to miss what this campaign and this election are all about. Obviously, it’s about electing a new president and vice president for the UC, but—not to get all existential or anything—it isn’t entirely clear what that means. When Fifteen Minutes ran an article and photo featuring Matthew W. Mahan ’05 at the end of his presidential term (gazing out a window, wistfully), it wasn’t clear what he was leaving behind. Likewise, with Matthew J. Glazer ’06 coming up on his last official hair-flip as president of the UC, it isn’t any more clear what his administration’s legacy will be in the eyes of the student body, if there is to be a legacy at all.

This is in no way an indictment of the work of these two individuals, or any other past UC president; if anything, they are among the hardest-working students on campus. For all their hard work, however, not a heck of a lot has changed on this campus in terms of the undergraduate experience in the last 15 years; reading through The Crimson’s archives back into the early 1990s finds complaints of egregious council waste and ho-hum, overly exclusive social life, bad TF-ing and lousy House community—the same that you would expect to find if you looked in The Crimson’s archives for this year.

It’s not so much an indictment, then, as it is an observation: for all we invest in the importance of student government, it might be capable of accomplishing very, very little, given an institution so slow to change and a student body that often can’t be bothered, wrapped up in its own business, perhaps as it should be.

The fact is that many of the issues that our campus politicians are running on—like improving undergraduate education, or the construction of a student center, or adequate student group office space—are things that the administration ought to be doing anyway, but doesn’t really need to do, because this is Harvard. The yield will always be high and the admissions rate will always be low, regardless of lousy sections, lousy social life, and a perceived lack of amenities. Why? Because of the iconic crimson H, enough U.S. presidents to field a baseball team, and a small swimming pool filled with Nobel prizes. The University feels very little immediate pressure to change, perhaps least of all from existing customers, for whom the Harvard pedigree has already trumped the desire for cable TV.

Moreover, those existing customers don’t seem to be convulsing at the lack of successful booze-cruises meant to unite the student body. At the end of the day, the social life is a direct product of the people studying here, many of whom (maybe most) are content to exist without campus-wide binges, Big Ten style pep rallies, and other trappings of the more stereotypically collegiate social scene. The Harvard social life is comprised of little spheres of insularity—final clubs, singing groups, sports teams, and yes, newspapers—revolving around one another, devouring their constituents’ time wholesale. Any UC president elected would have a hard time changing that fact in the course of a year, certainly not without somehow changing the student body itself.

These observations don’t point to fatalism, but rather to a bit more pragmatism. It is clear that meaningful change in student life at Harvard will likely come from one of two places: the administration and its long term plans, or a kind of sea-change in the attitudes of the student populace. As important as this race seems (or wishes to seem) now, only a short year from now, we’ll probably be looking back wondering what all the fuss was about.



Peter C. D. Mulcahy ’07, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is a government in Cabot House.