Class Boards get UA backing

The Undergraduate Assembly voted last night to make the newly-proposed Class Boards a UA committee on the level of SPEC or SCUE, and proposed that administrators assist in funding the program. Boards Co-founders Wharton sophomore Jason Diaz and College sophomore David Yarkin said they were pleased that their labors paid off. "We're very, very happy . . . we're just ecstatic," Yarkin said after last night's meeting. UA Chairperson Jeff Lichtman made the distinction between deciding on the Class Boards' existence and their funding. Funding for the Boards is to be determined later this week by the UA Budget and Finance Committee, Yarkin said. In their presentation to the UA, Yarkin and Diaz said the main goal of the Class Boards would be to institutionalize class identity and unity. Among the activities they have planned are class olympics, class tailgating parties at football games and a school-wide Ivy Ball, all of which would be new University traditions. Both the presenters and UA members expressed hope that the University administration will offer financial assistance to the Class Boards, who plan to hold their first elections in April. "I think that the administration is very interested in starting this up, and will do their best to kick in what they think is necessary," Lichtman said during the meeting. The UA discussed a number of ways that Class Boards could exist -- whether they would exist at all, be incorporated under the Student Activities Council like the current Senior Class Board, exist under the Social Planning and Events Committee, or as a separate branch under the UA like SPEC and Student Committee on Undergraduate Education. The fourth option was passed by the majority of the 19 members present -- out of 33 -- at the meeting. UA member Jeff Lowe, one of the two members present opposed to the decision, said he felt the decision was made too hastily. "The UA is on a power trip," Lowe said after the meeting. "They just want the Boards as a symbol of their power." Lichtman, on the other hand, said that the vote was a good one for two reasons. "People realize that with new projects they should keep as close to the UA as possible," Lichtman said. "This is a way of empowering the UA." "This will allow us to extend our hand into social programming, more so than SPEC and the UA currently," he added. In addition to the decision on Class Boards, the UA passed a resolution on lobbying the Trustees to minimize tuition increases. Lichtman, saying that March 19 would be "D-Day" as the Trustees meet to decide on these increases, proposed a resolution that the UA would "place as [its] floor the rate of inflation for 1992-93 or 1991-92, whichever is higher, and places as [its] acceptable ceiling .1 percent lower than last year's rate of tuition increase, which was 5.9 percent." The resolution, which passed unanimously, also called on the administration to opt for downsizing its own structure by 15 percent -- a figure which Lichtman said was proposed by President Sheldon Hackney as the amount of administrative downsizing over four years -- before "placing the economic burden any more on its undergraduates." UA members in the course of the meeting discussed a recent session of the Ivy Council, an Ivy League association of student governments, and the new availability of the Plan D Dining Service plan to juniors and seniors in the High Rises. The plan, which was previously only available for students who live off-campus, is for five lunches. "You really can get something done through the UA," member Eric Palace said.