Word: student
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...speech was sponsored by Project ADD (Alcohol and Drug Dialogue), a Harvard group that attempts to raise student awareness about substance abuse...
...current lack of faith in the council expressed by a large part of the student body is the result of a string of careless decisions that range from merely ill-informed to inexcusable. The net result is a Catch-22: Few students take interest in the council because the council doesn't do very much--and it doesn't do very much because nobody seems to care...
...Appoint a council researcher historian. The council often debates issues endlessly without any clue about what precedent has been set by previous councils. The council debated ROTC for two weeks, and no one ever mentioned that the Harvard student government had already declared a position on ROTC in 1982--mostly because no one knew. The "historian" (a work-study job) should have a few days before each debate to prepare an information packet for council members on the upcoming topic. The result would be a better informed council...
...Consult non-council student leaders on a regular basis. Last year, the Harvard Union of Student Officers brought together leaders from different realms of student life, but had no official representative capacity. The council should ask official leaders of all the student organizations to meet on a regular basis as an advisory body. The council can't champion every cause on campus, but it can learn valuable lessons from those...
THESE suggestions are largely structural. But structural changes can have a substantial effect on the debate of a body that has not yet decided exactly what it wants to do. Once the council has regained the faith of students through internal reform, it can begin to act instead of just reacting, taking on the issues--political or otherwise--that are most important to the student body. Maybe then the council can take itself a little more seriously and earn back the confidence of the student body it purports to represent...