A senior member of the Undergraduate Council of Students apparently attempted Saturday night to destroy all copies of a mid-year report to students - 6,000 copies costing almost $1,000 to print - after concerns were raised within UCS about the report's accuracy and presentation.
The report, which was to be distributed to students through campus mail, consisted of a cover sheet, two pages of committee information and three pages of members' names and titles in large type.
Much of the information in the members list was outdated, presenting the composition of UCS as of last October, before internal elections held early this semester led to a re-shuffling of senior positions.
Communications Chair Michael Thompson '07 apparently tried to throw away the reports, though he denies doing so. In an e-mail sent late Saturday night to Academic and Administrative Affairs Chair Tristan Freeman '07 and later obtained by The Herald, Thompson indicated he would dispose of them.
"No one who doesn't now have an electronic or paper copy of the midyear report will ever be able to get one, unless the information is shared by someone who currently has such info," Thompson wrote. "Every copy of the reports has been moved to a secure location and I doubt anyone on UCS will ever see them again. This includes all 6 boxes and all the copies that were in the garbage cans."
But Thompson told The Herald Sunday he was only moving the reports out of the UCS office to his room to free up space and that he would not destroy the copies without authorization from UCS's executive board.
"I sent (the e-mail to Freeman) in the middle of the night. We say a lot of things we never do," he said. "I had an emotion, I didn't act on it. Obviously it's not that hard to throw out six boxes, and I didn't."
Thompson had told The Herald Saturday night that "we might just recycle (the reports)."
Freeman sought to dissuade Thompson from destroying the reports, replying to his e-mail within minutes.
"Don't try to cover anything up - I'd rather you kept the reports where they are," wrote Freeman, who was communications chair before Thompson took over earlier this semester. Freeman then forwarded Thompson's e-mail to President Sarah Saxton-Frump '07 and Vice President Zachary Townsend '08.
"UCS as a body is dedicated to full transparency and to communicate with students as frequently as possible," Saxton-Frump told The Herald Sunday. "Any type of cover-up at any time is unacceptable and it is our job ... to hold ourselves responsible."
Brendan Hickey '08, an associate member of UCS, said he saw Thompson and Associate Member Mike Williams '08 carrying boxes of the mid-year report into Harkness House around 10:15 p.m. Hickey told The Herald that Thompson told him the reports were being recycled. The reports had previously been stored in the UCS office in Faunce House.
A reporter from The Herald saw the boxed reports in Thompson's room in Harkness late Saturday night. The reports were returned to the UCS office early Sunday morning, according to Thompson, who said Sunday night he had been ordered to return them.
The six-page report was first created last October by Freeman and the communications committee, and Freeman said it was completed in early December. Freeman authorized its printing on Dec. 9 at a total cost of $966, according to a copy of the purchase order from Metcalf Copy Center. Thompson said he sent the report to be printed around Feb. 10.
By then, the officer listings and committee agendas included in the report had changed due to the re-shuffling of the UCS executive board after the surprise resignations of then-President Brian Bidadi '06 and then-AAA Chair David Beckoff '08 at the beginning of the semester. At that time, Freeman left his post as communications chair and Thompson, formerly vice chair of the communications committee, took over.
The officer listings and committee agendas were not updated in the report as it was printed.
"That sort of slipped through the collective fingers of UCS," Saxton-Frump said.
Concerns were raised by UCS members not only about the information in the report, but also about the members' information was presented, in large type spread over three of the report's six pages.
"Are we really that arrogant as to want our names in enormous text spread over three pages and crass enough to actually do it?" asked Kate Brockwehl '08, a member of UCS, in an e-mail to the UCS internal mailing list.
Thompson sent the report to the printers at Freeman's request.
"I didn't know it was incorrect, I assumed it was correct," Thompson told The Herald. "When (Freeman) said, 'Mike, print this,' I just did it."
Freeman agreed. "Yeah, I told Mike to print the reports," he said.
Both attributed the printing of the incorrect report to the confusion of the transition between Freeman's tenure as communications chair and Thompson taking over that position at the beginning of February.
"These types of things happen in an organization such as UCS where there is turnover," Freeman said.
Freeman took responsibility for the mistakes in the report in an e-mail to UCS members Saturday night.
"I accept full responsibility for the quality of the mid-year report. It should be much, much better than it is," he wrote. In a second e-mail sent about two hours later, he again took responsibility, writing, "Leadership shuffles are not an excuse to renege on the work we have to do. ... As Communications Chair, the buck stopped with me for each and every communications issue we had to deal with."
Brockwehl, who had initially raised objections to the report, said the situation "is indicative of the trend UCS has towards secrecy despite repeated efforts to change."
"I think various people involved should consider resigning," she told The Herald.
It remains unclear what will happen to the reports. Freeman said he believed the best way to distribute the report would be with the last three pages - which contain the incorrect listing of UCS members - removed. But because the report is printed double-sided, it would be impossible to remove the three pages without either leaving an inaccurate partial listing of UCS officers or removing half of the information about committees from the report.
Freeman said no more money should be spent distributing the reports. The printing of $966 was 13 percent of the UCS semester budget of $7,402.40, according to the Undergraduate Finance Board's Web site.
"We're going to find ways" to inform students about UCS, he said, "without using any more of students' money."
