When candidates for Undergraduate Council chair spoke before their peers at the organization's first full meeting last week, the watchword was reform.

In some sense, that was no wonder.

Last year's council was plagued by a reputation of being elitist and ineffectual. Several factors contributed to the image, including a highly publicized, make-or-break concert that flopped, internal strife that culminated in a failed effort to oust the group's treasurer, and a cumbersome grants process rumored to favor those with friends on the finance committee.

Veteran council members said they were counting on the group's 57 new members to help institute a series of revitalizing changes.

But--like a nation in the former east bloc racing to institute reforms before the whole bureaucracy collapses--Harvard's student government may be running out of time.

The events of the past week, highlighted by last night's failed attempt to impeach the group's vice chair, have led some campus leaders and even several council members to say they are fed up.

The students are wondering aloud whether it isn't time to disband the Undergraduate Council altogether and startfresh.

"I think that the U.C. is slowly killingitself," says former council member and QuincyHouse resident J.D. LaRock '95, who lost his spoton the group earlier this year.

"In terms of public opinion, the situation ismore doleful for the U.C. than it's ever been, andthis is without any major student service failuresyet," LaRock says. "I think the feeling that theU.C. should be scrapped is growing."

Council leaders reject LaRock's claims, andsome dismiss them as the sour grapes of a failedcandidate.

"I don't think one problem with one committeeelection necessitates a complete overhaul," sayscouncil Chair Malcolm A. Heinicke '93, referringto the contested election that initiated chargesof election tampering against Vice Chair Maya G.Prabhu '94. "It's unwarranted."

But the concerns voiced by LaRock have beenechoed by sitting council members, some of whom,though just elected, appear to have given up hopethat the council can be reformed.

"After the last two weeks, I'm convinced thatthe U.C. should be dissolved and other optionsconsidered," says recently elected Dunster Houserepresentative Douglas M. DeMay '94. "I think theU.C. is a mute point."

Chief among the criticisms leveled at thecouncil is that it attracts students who put theirown political aspirations ahead of theirconstituents' needs.

Back-slapping and hand-shaking, the criticsargue, have taken precedence over a genuinecommitment to service.

To correct that, some of them are suggesting anall-new committee--perhaps composed of students,faculty and University administrators--that wouldperform many of the same functions as the existingcouncil without all the highly politicalovertones.