Tickets, etc.

However half-hearted the Student Council's suggestions for the HAA ticket office may be, they are gratifying. Certainly the Council's ideas to speed up football ticket processing are good ones: expanded office space, with additional employees to fill it, and IBM machines to take over the more time-consuming portion of the job.

To anyone who has waited for attention in the crowded ticket office or spent twenty minutes getting a "free line" on the HAA switchboard, and to all who have had to make plans for a football weekend an inconvenient two weeks in advance, the Council's proposals will seem reasonable. With these improvements, application deadline could easily be moved up to the Monday before the game.

Perhaps these improved conditions would also result in a change for the better in the ticket office's attitude towards students. If easing the load for employees will allow them more time to be courteous and helpful, they should have the time. Judging from past experiences, though, one would imagine nothing could help the HAA ticket office's disposition. Distribution of football tickets is not an act of generosity on the part of the HAA, but an obligation. This branch of the HAA is a service organization and the service is to be expected, not humbly requested.

If athletics do indeed "belong to the students," as the University insists, action must be taken on a proposal the Council has returned to committee. This is the resectioning of the stadium to give undergraduates better seats. At present Harvard students can have seats on only the northern side of the fifty-yard line; the southern side, sections 29, 30 and 31, is for former Varsity Club men with season tickets, former lettermen, and players and University officials, respectively.

With all due respect to alumni and former lettermen, they have seen their share of games as undergraduates, and should not outrank other students in seating preference.

As for the dubious section 31, it is well known that few University officials frequent the stadium on Saturday afternoons, and often players do not make use of all the seats available to them. Yet these seats are filled throughout the season. Even the Student Council senses that "these tickets are used by groups other than those listed."

At next Monday's session the Council would do well to investigate section 31 further, as well as to pass a demand for a more equitable seating arrangement.