The Mail SUPERCOUNCIL

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

When the late Harvard Undergraduate Council took office last March, we had no money, no facilities to communicate with the student body or the Faculty. That rendered our position during the crisis of last Spring next to useless when as a student representative organization we should have assumed a meaningful role, interpreting the issues which concerned the Harvard community. Since the incidents of last Spring, the treasurer of the H. U. C., Peter Bernbaum, and I began an extensive program to raise funds in order to establish some semblance of student representation at Harvard College.

We spent a great portion of last Spring semester and the summer months writing Alumni and past members of the Council to ask them for funds. We told them that we felt that there was a great need for, a student representative organization which could strongly present student opinion. We also acquainted them with the past history of fund raising for the H. U. C. which consisted of soliciting voluntary contributions from the student body at fall registration. Contributions were few and generally came from freshmen. The $1,500 which we usually raised in the past was totally inadequate to provide the kind of service and the organization which would efficiently deal with undergraduate issues. From this fund raising effort, we raised approximately $4,000, to be used as we saw fit. This allowed us to pay back bills which the Council had accrued and provide some of the essentials which any organization needs to function properly.

On Monday, February 2nd, undergraduates will be asked to vote on a proposal which establishes one undergraduate representative organization which will consolidate the four important concerns of the student body: Undergraduate Education, Undergraduate Life, the University's Relationship to the Society, and Conduct within the University. I anticipate that there will be a tendency on the part of some undergraduates to vote for the establishment of this group but vote against funding it. As one who has been involved in past (what may loosely be termed) student representative organizations and as one who framed the proposals which will appear before the student body on registration day, I would like to make my position clear. If the student body votes to establish the new council but not fund it, it will render the new Council useless. In effect, the student body will be setting up an organization which, while it will represent important points of view, will not have the facilities to communicate with its constituency.

I personally am convinced that if the student body votes the establishment and funding of this new Council, they will notice a drastic departure from past student representative ineffectuality.

[The referendum on the Super council has been postponed for two weeks.]