Telephone Number Madness

I have before me a prized possession--one that makes my undergraduate life here at Harvard a lot easier. It's called the "Harvard University Telephone Directory," but it's not to be confused with the students directory that all students are given.

This directory contains listings of all Harvard's faculty and administration, of all Harvard's departments, libraries, facilities and other resources, and all sorts of information about telephone services such as conference calling and voice mail. It's an invaluable publication--yet, inexcusably, it is not given to students.

Harvard is always quick to deny charges that professors are not accessible to the student body, that the University doesn't care about its undergraduates. But the Harvard University Telephone Directory and Harvard's system of telephone segregation indicate otherwise.

Easy access to department and faculty office numbers would surely help promote student-faculty interaction, as would the availability of student numbers to Harvard faculty (who are, I would guess, equally deprived of student directories). This is so obvious, in fact, that the lack of such access is a clear sign that "someone" is less than enthusiastic about such interaction.

No doubt, Harvard will respond with the assertion that after a mere 20 rings, any phone number can be obtained from Information. Well, sure, the University hasn't gone so far as to make faculty office numbers secret--just a little hard to get.

But, still, Information is no substitute for pages of directory listings packed with offices, services and facilities that I, for one, didn't even know existed. Most undergraduates wouldn't dream of asking the operator for facilities ranging from computer assistance to environmental safety that dot the pages of the University directory.

It is high time that Harvard take steps towards improving undergraduate access to the full range of campus life. Combining the two telephone directories or handing both out to students would be a simple gesture--and it might even begin to counter the image of Harvard as aloof and indifferent to undergraduate concerns.