Word: wide
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...your life nor its focal point. Some people will become directly involved, some indirectly, and many will appear not to be involved at all. Yet all will be able to make this vision a reality in their own lives, and personally contribute to the creation of a world-wide climate dedicated to the cessation of hunger...
...Constitution's lack of effectiveness is obvious on two levels. First, as far as University-wide policy is concerned, the Assembly would be a very loosely-organized debating society, and any consensus it reached would have about as much effect on Harvard as that of a debating society. That is, it will create more resolutions and petitions which Harvard will ignore...
...second level is the extensive decision-making that takes place in Harvard's relatively autonomous sub-units such as departments and Houses. Despite the convention's vaunted claims of decentralized government, the only organization it sets up is a College-wide Assembly to serve as a forum for student issues. In this structure there is no provision for affecting policy-making in Harvard's smaller fiefdoms. Indeed, by the time grass-roots student activism filters up to the Assembly by way of elected representatives or referendums, is fussed over in that deliberative body, and passed back down, whatever impetus...
...crucial issue is the Constitution's split between structure and function. The Constitution's structure only facilitates debate. The function needed from a College-wide organization is that of applying pressure on Harvard to take action students want. That function is lacking in the proposed Constitution. We don't need an organizational structure that sees students as "consumers of Harvard's services." We need a student union that recognizes the structural disadvantage of students in Harvard's power system, and we need to organize and change that system...
...University of Massachusetts at Amherst are making that effort, doing that organizing, right now. They are putting together a union of students, based on councils within departments and dorms, with a small administrative staff to do basic research, coordinate council agendas, and help mobilize student opinion on University-wide issues. Their effort has been two years in the making, and may require another two years before it includes the whole university. But the students are making changes at UMass-Amherst already, in areas like the hiring and firing of teachers, course selection and requirements, and housing policy...