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...This is the second of a two-part serialization of the Report to the HUC on Decision-Making at Harvard. Yesterday's feature dealt with education decisions. Today, the author concludes with social and financial decisions...
...HUC: Powerless...
...HUC has always been powerless, by anyone's standards. Its president, Stephan Kaplan '69, says, "We will never be a legislative body, only an advisory one." Unfortunately, most people have not had Kaplan's experience of knocking futilely on the doors of power. These people, including some members of the Council itself, are mislead by the HUC's legislative appearance, by the reporting of its motions in the CRIMSON, and by the Council's unique position as the undergraduates' only representative body. Because HUC meetings are conducted in a legislative manner, it is concluded that the HUC is a decision...
Last spring, the HUC passed a highly significant motion calling for student seats on all faculty committees. We sent the proposal to the CEP and Committee on Houses (COH) and crossed our fingers. In time, both groups sent back ambiguous letters of rejection; and they invited us in to talk about it. We could do nothing except change our minds and agree with them or wait a year and try again. Doing either meant abdicating our responsibility to the student body. Yet the alternative was confrontation politics, something that the HUC, which acts with its hands rather than its feet...
Take parietals, for another good example. This is the only case on record in which the Committee on Houses acted positively on an HUC proposal. Why? Not because of any respect for student body opinion, certainly. Just one year before the COH had completely ignored a college-wide poll which showed students unanimously supporting increased parietals. Actually, the COH's well-timed acquiescence was motivated by militant pressure tactics from radical student groups--a sleep-in was threatened. A second factor was the increasing absurdity of Harvard's parietal position as colleges like Wellesley instituted hours that were twice...