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...Undergraduate Council has never been the most popular organization on campus. As president, it is hard to deny that most students view the UC with suspicion and doubt, for the council has often appeared more self-important than productive. But as the elected student government, the UC has always held a great deal of potential. Created by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the UC’s responsibility is to advocate for students in a complex and decentralized Harvard administration. Even though the mission of the council is straightforward, it has never been easily accomplished. The UC has become...
...place where the lecturer’s ideas are tested and challenged, which means that one has also missed ten minutes of the ongoing lecture. At worst, the mind simply counts the minutes until class is over. There is never a guarantee that all, or even most students, will, by the end of the term, be able to articulate most of the intellectual goals of the class. When I graduated, for instance, I couldn’t even have explained what anthropology is, and I was an anthropology concentrator. The test of the professor’s efficacy is less...
...greatest success is the student who pursues his or her own research. The student who does not turn trained precision of thought into a weapon against received wisdom might get an A for the elementary school lesson of sitting still. The student who learns the quickest route to a legitimizing degree and a six-figure salary gets an A for the lessons of vocational school. But the student who uses scholarship and words to resist the authoritarianism and the injustice of senescent power gets an A for the lessons of Harvard College. In the history of Harvard, many students...
This semester, the UC took a series of steps to reconnect with the student body. With a new communications committee, we have spent a semester trying to inform students about how we work, and how they can get involved. Students came together to improve UC funding, provide new student services, work towards an ethnic studies secondary field, advocate for student social space, and protest budget cuts. When it was announced that the campus would close for five weeks in January next year, we had over 100 students ask how they could respond or change the decision...
When the UC explored the possibility of fundraising for a student center, students came to the general meeting and debated passionately for two hours for and against the proposal. When students became involved in these issues, UC members became better representatives. They could actively point to the opinions of the students who had elected them, and our council debates became longer and more nuanced as we began to consider the opinions of people outside of the room. The UC membership naturally expanded and evolved from a self-selecting governing body to a more inclusive group of concerned students...