The winners of the Yale College Council-sponsored Mr. and Ms. Harvard Pageant may be the only beauty champions around that sport pocket protectors and fanny packs.
After a term marked by the Counting Crows concert and the Battle of the Bands, the YCC’s agenda this semester includes the mock Mr. and Ms. Harvard Pageant, the Winter Ball, Spring Fling and dining hall reform.
Andrew Allison ’04 was activities committee chairman last semester and was in charge of coordinating the concerts and other events.
“The rest of our time was planning the spring,” Allison said. “We try to have events frequently in the spring. We’re going to do Winter Ball this Saturday, which we’ve put a lot of work into.”
YCC President Vidhya Prabhakaran ’03 said publicity for the Winter Ball has not been up to par but he thinks the Yale Symphony Orchestra will make it special this year.
“It’s the first time in a while that the YSO will be back playing, so that should be fun,” Prabhakaran said. “The YSO is always good, I don’t know why we haven’t used them in past years. It’s nice because they know what we like because they’re students too, so it should be good.”
The next YCC event will be the Mr. and Ms. Harvard Pageant, Allison said. The event will occur during the March 1 weekend when Yale plays Harvard in both hockey and basketball.
“We’ll have two people, a guy and a girl from each college,” Allison said. “And they can come and dress up as whatever their impersonation wants to be — they can go really prep, just be something playfully mocking of Harvard.”
Edward Pritchett ’05, spring semester activities chairman, said the committee is looking into some smaller issues like providing a bus to New York on the weekends.
“Something that I’ve heard of that’s not really in the planning stages is a weekly bus or like a Saturday bus to New York that may not be free but at least subsidized somewhat by, if not YCC, the university,” Pritchett said. “New York has so many great opportunities for things to do and we’re so close that a bus would be a lot easier for us to go.”
In December, the YCC passed three resolutions — one calling for a more comprehensive environmental policy, and two regarding the University’s long distance service.
Fall semester issues committee chairman Howard Han ’02 said the committee took up the long distance issue when they heard the University might eliminate long distance service altogether.
“One of our big projects from last semester was a telecom survey,” Han said. “Basically we were working with [Information Technology Services] to see what Yale students’ habits were regarding phone usage.”
The resolution said Yale should continue to offer long distance service and should try to lower the cost to students. All other things being equal, the YCC also endorsed EarthTones as the long distance service because it is a non-profit phone company that gives its profits to environmental organizations.
Jeff Euben, manager of videoconferencing services and networking services for telecom, said EarthTones is being considered along with several other companies that have submitted bids.
Han said few resolutions were proposed last semester but that the YCC did substantial research.ÊÊ
“I feel like it was productive in the sense that we got a lot of research done,” Han said. “Traditionally our weakness has been not enough research. I think in this upcoming semester you’re going to see a lot of the results of that.”
Prabhakaran and Han said the next big issue will be dining hall reform.
“I anticipate that there are going to be a lot of dining-related resolutions this semester — things about flex, opening dining halls during Camp Yale, that sort of thing,” Prabhakaran said.
Prabhakaran said some of the issues are dependent on union negotiations. For example, part of the union contracts stipulate that only a certain number of restaurants can accept Flex dollars.
“Hopefully both sides will be amenable to adding another flex location,” Prabhakaran said.
Sam Asher ’04 was elected the issues committee chairman for this semester.