Freedom of Employment

For several years, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III has banned Southwestern-a Nashville-based publishing and book-selling company-from recruiting new soles representatives on Harvard's campus. Southwestern employs more than 5000 college and graduate students to work selling Bibles and encyclopedias for 13 weeks each summer.

As Dean of Students, Archie C. Epps III has jurisdiction over campus life during the school year, but he goes too far when he tries to influence student's choices in summer jobs. By not allowing the Southwestern Company to recruit on campus, Epps and the Administration assume Harvard students are not responsible enough to make their own decisions. What is worse is that the University denies students of a crucial need-the need to make enough money during the summer in order to carry them through an expensive school year.

Epps has criticized the company's recruiting methods as sensational, but interviews and information sessions are honest and straightforward-and no one goes to the preparatory sales school in Nashville without knowing exactly what they are in for. Epps has also stated that he is wary of the risk involved when students go far away from home without a guaranteed salary.

Contrary to the Administration's beliefs, there is very little risk involved. All Southwestern does is to provide the materials-the books-and to offer instruction on how to sell them. The rest is up to the individual. In addition, the company teaches each dealer how to manage his money and provides assistance on finding a place to live.

Southwestern only gives students the chance to make as much money as hey are able, but the company does not hold any hand or make any guarantees-it just provides a chance to live and work independently. Employees work for a 42 percent commission. Although working on a commission basis can be risky, it also allows for more freedom and potential earnings are limitless. For instance, within a group of students from Yale, Brown, Trinity, and Middlebury colleges, net earnings ranged from profits of $10,000 to losses of $20.

Why should it be illegal for Harvard students to speak with Southwestern representatives visiting on campus? Harvard is one of the only Ivy League schools which actively prohibits its students from being able to find out information about such summer employment. Yale, Princeton, Brown, University of Pennsylvania and dozens of other colleges permit their students to meet with Southwestern on their campuses.

Selling books door to door is not the job for everyone but it can be one of the most challenging, interesting and lucrative jobs for someone who is willing to commit themselves to three months of intensive hard work in a place far from home. Knocking on doors for 12 and a half hours a day, six days a week is grueling, but it is more of an adventure than anything else. Selling books is not an intellectual endeavor. All it takes to do well is the desire and stamina to keep on going, rejection after rejection. At times, the work is emotionally straining and humbling, but gradually after accruing confidence and skills-the welling process becomes easier and more rewarding. Basically, there is little reason why anyone should not earn a reasonable profit with sufficient effort.

The hardships of book selling do not compare with those of book camp, but the Marines recruit on campus and companies like IBM and Manufacturer's Hanover can interview interested seniors as well. What criteria does the Administration use to decide which companies are "proper" for Harvard students to work for? The decision should be left to the students, because they will ultimately be the ones who will have to do the job. As a student I appreciates Epps' concern for our safety, but caring as he is, he is only limiting students' opportunities in an era of high tuition costs and increasingly scare high paying summer jobs.

Clara Bingham '85 lives in Adams House and worked for Southwestern last summer in Detroit selling encyclopedias.