Last year's Springfest didn't have fried dough, a festival staple, because the Campus Life Committee didn't think it would be cost-effective.

Even if the referendum had passed, Harvard's term bill fee would have remained one of the lowest in the nation. As it stands now, the council's funding is dwarfed by other schools like Duke, where students pay $66 per year, and Tufts, where they pay a mandatory annual $179 fee.

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The council could ask Lewis to unilaterally raise the fee--a power he could exercise with the approval of the Faculty.

But Lewis says the council's decision to hold a referendum has complicated the matter.

"The term bill fee should be raised....My own sympathies are to increase the UC fee," he writes in an e-mail message. "But this is not the current trend, de facto. I would really prefer to have student support."

Council members say that they think they would be unsuccessful trying to convince administrators to raise the fee without another referendum.

"He wants student support," Driskell says. "So you know what that means. That's going to be me, going door-to-door."