Report Suggests Changes for Optional Winter Activities Week

Amid complaints about the lack of appealing programming and poor communication of available opportunities, Optional Winter Activities Week failed to attract the participation of the large majority of the student body, according to a report presented by Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds at yesterday’s Faculty meeting.

Among students who responded to the College’s survey about winter break, 37 percent attended the inaugural week of programming held in January. The majority of students indicated that they “had other plans.”

The report presented by Hammonds offers recommendations for addressing students’ concerns about OWAW and the earlier weeks of winter break, but also cautions against spending undue funds and staff time on the scarcely populated weeks.

“It is important for the College to determine whether and how to grow the program and to allocate staffing and other resources accordingly,” the report reads.

“The College should determine whether it wants OWAW to be one of the hallmarks of the undergraduate experience and to plan accordingly, not only in terms of staffing and resources, but also in managing people’s expectations about the week’s goals,” the report adds.

Despite the oftentimes dismal complaints reported in the poll, Hammonds projected a rosy image of OWAW in yesterday’s Faculty meeting, praising the long break as a time when students could “decompress from the high-stress lives they lead on campus.”

Many of the 924 students who responded to the survey lauded the time they spent relaxing at home during break and the opportunity to enjoy a week at Harvard without schoolwork. Others said they participated in activities as diverse as applying for a patent, seeking treatment for an eating disorder, and getting engaged.

Upon studying these responses, which ranged from thrilled to embittered, College administrators agreed that the College’s approach to winter break, which has not been clearly articulated since calendar reform created the lengthy gap between semesters two years ago, still needs further review.

CHANGES TO A LONELY TIME

The report presented yesterday includes numerous recommendations, which Hammonds and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith are currently considering.

For instance, the report recommends opening House dining halls as social spaces, although only Annenberg Hall serves meals during winter break, and potentially offering nighttime snacks in the dining halls to alleviate the “severe loneliness” that some students who remained on campus for the duration of winter break described.

The report also tentatively suggests opening one River and one Quad dining hall to address one of the most virulent and frequent complaints on the survey: that walking through the brutal January weather to Annenberg was a hassle during break.

Just two-thirds of respondents who lived on campus over the break said they ate meals in Annenberg.

“Having to travel from the Quad to Annenberg often meant I didn’t eat,” one respondent wrote.

Others who did not eat in Annenberg said it was due to the scheduled mealtimes, not the distance. Those performing research in labs off-campus said they spent lunch and dinner hours away from the Yard, but they would have eaten breakfast in Annenberg if it had been served.

Associate Dean and Senior Adviser to the Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II, who led the committee that oversaw winter break, said that “the financial constraints [of opening a second dining hall] are real.”

“It will come down to cost,” he said. “The desire to put the additional funds into term-time activities is still a priority. ... It would mean a reduction in services during the academic term which all students would feel.”

McLoughlin said that the hefty portion of students staying on campus who did not eat meals in Annenberg indicates that the College can provide on-campus housing during winter break to more students next year, since the capacity of Annenberg was the limiting factor which determined the number of berths offered this year.

The next group that would likely be given housing, McLoughlin said, is students who have independently secured January jobs and internships in Cambridge or Boston.

This year, according to the report, these students were officially denied housing. However, the report notes that House staff later granted residence to many of these students, which McLoughlin said brought an undesirable level of inequity to the housing approval process.

WINTER MAY ALWAYS BE ‘SMORGASBORD’

Hammonds announced yesterday that next year’s OWAW will be stretched from eight days to ten in order to avoid reopening the Houses on a weekend day.

Aside from this change, next year’s OWAW is likely to resemble this year’s, despite the fact that 70 percent of pollees said they would participate in credit-granting courses if they were available during OWAW and that the Undergraduate Council has advocated for a two-week winter activities session with more faculty-led programs.

McLoughlin says that he wants to see students “voting with their feet” to determine how the College will focus in the long term on winter offerings.

He said it might be telling if, for example, less than 40 percent of the student body appears for OWAW again next year but attendance spikes at off-campus programs, such as the Office of Career Services’ Career Treks—which this year drew 65 students during the first weeks of break and another 65 during OWAW—and the career shadowing spots sponsored by the Harvard Alumni Association.

In that case, McLoughlin said, “We may decide to invest more in those and less on activities here on this campus.”

“I think our goal is to continue at the moment to beef up both: to continue more January experiences, to explore more funding for international travel, and thirdly to continue offering this week of on-campus activities and then see what students want to do,” McLouglin said. “It’s possible that that smorgasbord of options will be what winter break will always look like.”

—Gautam S. Kumar contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.