Union Meals

The commuter myth is a tenuous one at best: students who represent a narrow economic, social, intellectual, and geographical section of the Harvard community are supposed to become members of a typical Harvard House--Dudley--while remaining part of the undergraduate community. The weaknesses of this ideal are needlessly strained, however, by the present eating arrangements for Freshman commuters.

The Freshman year is not just a period of academic orientation; it is the time when a student becomes a member of the College community and acclimates himself to College life. The separation of commuters from the rest of the community is in large part a product of their removal from the experience of the Freshman year. A large part of this removal is an economic necessity: the purpose of commuting is to make life cheaper, and it does this by removing some of the most expensive (and integrating) parts of Freshman life: rooms and food.

Even the commuting student, however, eats most of his lunch meals at Harvard, and if he is a Freshman his eating in the Union can play a valuable part in making him part of his class and the College. The Union, even for resident students, is the most unifying experience of most Freshmen's year. There is economic pressure, however, to eat at Dudley (where it is possible to feed oneself far more cheaply) or in the Square (where the food is usually better). But if commuting students were required to buy a year lunch ticket for the Union, this economic incentive would vanish, and they could eat with their classmates without penalizing themselves.

It is unreasonable and unwise to contend that commuters do not need the experience of the Freshman year. If anything, being separated from the mainstream of College life for the rest of their careers, they need it more than residents. To give them a meal ticket for their weekday lunches would actually cost them only about $150, without accounting for the saving from lunches which they would not have to pay for.

If commuting is to be an "economy model" rather than a second-rate form of the Harvard education, it must become a part of the College rather than a sideline: really integrating commuters into the Freshman year would be a major step in this direction.