Looking Out for Number One

To be a Harvard undergraduate is a responsibility. Most of us were extremely lucky to be accepted here. We had friends, family and schools pushing us to achieve. I know that my mother's struggles to balance her time between me and her job encouraged me to do well and to make her proud. I know that my African-American community had enough faith in me and what I would accomplish to give me a scholarship. And I know that Harvard believed in me enough to see that I would serve the campus and the world.

This fall, I recruited in the Philadelphia area for the Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program, and I took away a fairly good idea of what the admissions office is looking for in potential Harvard students: applicants who will not only be academically successful but who will also carry well the Harvard name. The admissions officer who oversees all applicants from my area told me Harvard wants more than students who scored 1600s on the SAT. "Everyone can do the work," she commented, "but who is going to be a leader?" Most of the people who apply to this school could be Harvard students; the reason we are here is that the admissions committee saw in us the potential to have an impact on society.

It is for these reasons that a concept like "Harvard Students First" worries me. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a slogan that originated in the Undergraduate Council two years ago to challenge the political turn the council took under the leadership of Robert M. Hyman '98 and Lamelle D. Rawlins '99. "Harvard Students First" means exactly what it says: that the main concern of Harvard students should be problems that solely affect Harvard students.

This is one of the most selfish bits of propaganda I have heard on campus. The idea behind "Harvard Students First" was the momentum behind the pro-grape forces during the recent grape referendum, and came up again in December's campaigns for the Undergraduate Council presidency and vice presidency.

Many of the arguments in the grape debate centered on the notion that Harvard students should not be concerned with alleged mistreatment of grape-pickers. The implication was that students have no greater responsibility to society, particularly if such a responsibility might interfere with their food consumption.

We then elected an Undergraduate Council president and vice president who ran on a platform calling for the council to deal primarily with shuttle services and extending party hours until 2 a.m.--which, I might add, is prohibited by local law. While these issues are important to me, particularly shuttle service because I live in the Quad, they should not be the exclusive focus of an organization that can effect real change if we, as students, begin to see it that way.

Many students are apathetic about Faculty diversity because it does not matter what your professor looks like--it is your teaching fellow who grades you. However, what does the fact that we have one African-American female tenured professor say about this institution? What does it say about Harvard students that we do not care enough to be outraged? If Harvard will hire just one, it gives ample justification to other schools to hire zero.

It frustrates me that those who do not espouse a belief in "Harvard Students First" have been labeled as frivolous, do-gooder, liberal types who will get the students entangled in issues which they cannot change. In reality, the world listens to us. Much has been recently said about the Undergraduate Council discussing, to quote one member, "stuff like Burma."

In reality, the council was debating whether Pepsi, a company known for human rights abuses in Burma, should serve our dining halls. In a Spring 1996 vote, the council supported returning Coke to the dining halls. Following our example, other campuses did the same. Neither Michigan nor the University of Pennsylvania serves Pepsi. Moreover, I recently got a call from a high school classmate who had read the front-page Wall Street Journal article on our grape referendum. We clearly have a voice that reaches farther than Johnston Gate or the Massachusetts state line.

Most of us worked really hard to be first in classes or at competitions. But we have always been first; as we become citizens, are we now prepared to perpetually step on No. 2 and No. 3? I refuse to believe students on this campus are selfish enough to think they should serve only their own interests, while ignoring our potential impact on society. We were not accepted to be that egotistic.

Kamil E. Redmond '00 is a member of the Undergraduate Council representing Pforzheimer House.