Word: uc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nearly 700 students cast their votes last week to fill recently opened Undergraduate Council (UC) seats, in special elections complicated by low voter turnout in Mather House and the resignation of former UC presidential candidate John F. Voith III ’07. Fewer than 10 people had voted in Mather only hours before the election was supposed to end on Thursday morning, prompting the UC’s Election Commission to extend the voting period in the House until noon on Friday, according to Commission Chair Michael B. Love ’08. “We were afraid...
Institutionalizing UC polling could turn out to be a tremendous legacy that the current UC could leave to its successors, and we wish the UC success in this process...
...similar note, we hope the UC does not act on suggestions of holding a campus referendum of student confidence in University President Lawrence H. Summers. Setting aside our opposition to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ (FAS) upcoming vote, conducting a student poll would have a highly tenuous basis. The relationship between Summers and students is often ambiguous and students’ understanding of that relationship far from adequate. These problems are compounded by the fact that any phrasing of the question would have undue influence over the outcome of a binary poll. Finally, we are concerned that...
...hope, instead, that when possible, the UC limits its polling to data collection for policy analysis rather than direct decision-making. The UC’s greatest recent successes—for instance the creation 24-hour library—have been backed by data mined from student polls. Such polls are also crucial if the UC is to be successful on its top advocacy priorities—which include improving social programming, lowering the price of course packs, and enhancing financial...
...polls are to be effective, they should be infrequent and should be yoked to massive publicity campaign. We suggest that the UC consider institutionalizing an annual or biannual poll that covers a wide swath of issues. Establishing such a tradition could be a boon to student’s sense of civic participation. If the UC concentrates its efforts of organizing forums, e-mailing house lists, and publicizing position papers to a short drum-up to such an annual event, students will be more apt to listen...