New Student Center Designed to Foster Sense of Community

For more than half a century, President A. Lawrence Lowell's vision of the House system as a set of self-contained social, residential and intellectual communities has governed student life at Harvard. While other schools built large centralized student activities centers and specialized minority centers, the College stubbornly resisted.

But after a steady groundswell of student complaints about campus polarization and the increased commercialization of the Square, College administrators have committed to a massive project to bolster community life on campus.

They plan to transform the basement of Memorial Hall into a large student center called the Loker Commons, which will feature a coffee house, a pizzeria, activity rooms and meeting rooms. The project was conceived in response to student complaints about a dearth of recreational space.

The renovation is partially funded by a $7 million gift from Katherine Bogdonovich Loker, widow of Donald P. Loker '25, and the daughter of Star-Kist Foods founder Martin Bogdonovich.

The commons will be located underneath a new first-year dining hall, which will relocate from its present location at the Harvard Union to what is now Alumni Hall. It will provide a place for students to gather and relax between classes and sections, according to Philip J. Parsons, director of planning and senior development officer in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"I am so excited about this," he says. "This is huge--I must have two feet of files on it."

He emphasized the perception that Memorial Hall is "an underused building at the heart of the campus," and pointed out that the new center would be convenient for the great number of students attending classes in the Science Center and Sanders Theatre.

The commons will surround a central "street," with eating areas lining both sides and a court of booths and activity rooms at the end, beneath Sanders Theatre.

Student input prompted the redrawing of plans for the commons made by the Philadelphia-based architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.

The Memorial Hall Planning Committee report, formulated by students, faculty and administrators, provides detailed specifications about the structure of the commons as well as the desired ambience.

Program requests for the pizzeria specify that it should "avoid an institutional feeling as much as possible," while the coffeehouse "should feel like a 'smoke-filled room' (but smoke free!)." They also suggest a place to "read a paper with a cup of coffee," "a space for people-watching" and a "lounge area/hang-out space."

A campus bar that would admit minors is also under consideration for the commons. However, according to the report, such a facility might only serve beer and wine.

Loker Commons area draft plans also show space for up to three booths for services which could include a newsstand, a sweet shop, a florist, a ticket office, a fax machine, e-mail terminals or short-term facilities for student-run activities.

Students recommended that the Loker Commons contain two separate eateries, as opposed to the single large open area which was originally proposed.

Students also pushed for the option either to term-bill their food purchases or use meal plan credits to pay in the commons eateries rather than relying on cash. When the new electronic identification cards are introduced, students may be able to use them as college "credit cards" at the commons.

Whether these suggestions will be implemented depends upon the results of a pending financial analysis conducted by the committee.

"One of our main concerns is that we want to be able to provide these services without increasing the board rate for students," Parsons says.

A Unifying Influence?

While the $25 million center is not expected to open until the 1995-96 school year, students and faculty members have already contemplated possible effects the commons may have on campus life.

"Harvard College is undeniably somewhat devoid of unifying institutions," says Malcoin A. Heinicke '93, who was chair of the Undergraduate Council last fall when plans for the commons were first formally publicized.

"The houses were not designed to isolate students from one another," he says, "but to serve as places where people could come together, meet, eat and be social."

Students may not eat all meals in their respective houses if alternative dining privileges become available to them under their board contracts, but Heinicke says he does not worry that fewer meals together will weaken the bonds of housemates.

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles agrees that the commons will not hurt house life. "It's an added amenity, not a competing one," he says.

He adds that the commons will also serve members of the Harvard community who are not students.

"This is not a student center, this is the local commons," Knowles says. "It won't hurt the houses because it's a place that is partly for freshmen and upperclass students, but also for teaching fellows and faculty."

Parsons says that he conceives of the project as "affirming the house structure rather than undermining it by providing a place where freshmen can feel that they belong, like the upperclassmen can in their houses."

"It's almost as though we are completing the house project with this addition," Parsons adds.

Questions have been raised, however, as to whether, given its proximity to the Yard, the commons will serve as something of a "first year house."

While members of the entire University community will probably take advantage of the commons during the day because of its proximity to the Yard, first-year students may utilize the space more at night and on week-ends for the same reason, says Parsons.

"One of our priorities in the planning of this project was the creation of a space that will integrate freshmen more quickly into life at Harvard," he says.

An added incentive for the centrally located commons was the attempt to increase interaction between first-year students and upperclass students, and between students who reside in different houses.

According to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, the commons will provide for first-year students some of the opportunities now available to upperclass students in their houses. "We see the commons as complementing the house system in the center of campus," he says.

In the past, the Square has provided places for students to congregate outside of their houses with faculty and with each other. Epps has lamented that the commercialization of the Square in recent years has deprived students of such gathering places.

And because the commons will become an integral part of student life at Harvard, the planning committee throughout the year called for student input.

"A project can only be as successful as the ideas that are put into it," Parsons says. "And we really wanted to do a lot of consulting before we made hard decisions."

"We advertised meetings, hoping that students would attend and offer their insights," Parsons says. "But very few students showed up."

Jennifer W. Grove '94 represented the Undergraduate Council and Perry S. Chen '98' represented student musical groups on the planning committee, which was chaired by Christoph J. Wolff dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Groups Will Be Displaced

The students played an important role in ensuring that activities which are currently housed in Memorial Hall have facilities during the period of renovation and after the commons is completed. Groups housed in the basement of Memorial Hall will be required to move as early as January of 1994, to allow the building to be prepared for construction.

Some groups may relocate to the now vacant 500-seat Lowell Hall, on the corner of Oxford and Kirkland Streets and the building which now houses Hillel at 74 Mt. Auburn St.

Lowell Hall will be renovated and reopened before construction begins on Alumni Hall, providing performing arts groups with a suitable facility into which they

'Harvard College is undeniably somewhat devoid of unifying institutions.'

MALCOLM A. HEINICKE '93 FORMER UNDERGRADUATE COUNCIL CHAIR can move.

"This is an integral part of the project," Parsons says. "When we are done with the upgrade of Sanders Theatre and the renovation of Lowell Hall, we will have significantly improved the facilities available to the performing arts groups at Harvard."

Parsons says these groups were one of the planning committee's main concerns, as the original plans called for them to be ousted from Memorial Hall with little thought as to where they might end up.

"Because of the exponential growth we've seen in the arts here in recent years, it became obvious that we would have to do something to turn around the costs we would be inflicting on these groups," Parsons says.

Other groups like the Salient, the Harvard Islamic Society, Raza and the Black Students Association could end up at the current Hillel building after it moves to Rosovsky Hall, construction on which is expected to be completed by September, 1994.

Liberal monthly publication Perspective, whose offices are presently in Memorial Hall, may not have sufficient meeting space after it moves next winter, according to President Jesse M. Furman '94. "We don't know where we're moving yet," he says. "But it will probably be a huge inconvenience, especially since we're moving in the middle of the year."

Furman says the new offices might not provide enough room for both production and conferencing. "What I'm worried about right now is the year and a half of lag time between the time we move and the time we can meet at Mem Hall," he says.

Furman is optimistic that the access to new resources will benefit Harvard students campus-wide, regardless of the inconvenience to his organization.

"I really think that in the end, for the Harvard community, the trouble will be worth it," he says.

Some groups are even using the move as an opportunity to expand their operations and improve their facilities.

WHRB, Harvard's radio station, has already undertaken a $1.3 million fund raising campaign to upgrade its equipment when it moves to the renovated basement of Pennypacker Hall next year, according to General Manager Jeremy A. Rassen '95.

Some groups will be able to return to their former Memorial Hall haunts after the commons is complete Parsons says that many of the groups whose offices now occupy the Memorial Hall basement use their space mainly for storage.

"We now have the opportunity to rethink the space we are allocating to student groups," he says. "We want the activities area to be alive, with an open door policy for groups who want to meet there."

According to Parsons, few of the groups who now use basement space actually need permanent offices there. The planning committee proposes to allow student groups to store mobile files in the commons area, moving them into activities rooms for meetings.

Parsons says he hopes to keep Sanders Theatre open and usable throughout the coming academic years, closing it for renovation only during the summer months. "It would be a major problem finding other areas where large core classes would meet if we couldn't use Sanders," he adds.

"That dining hall is going to be so fantastically beautiful when it is ready, I look forward to that day," Parsons effuses.

He takes pride in the original plans, citing the fact that, in the end, the committee "stuck close to our first concept, which must mean that we started off in the right direction."

And even if future years call for new designs, Parsons says the plans were conceived in such a way as to be flexible. "Nothing will be set in stone," he says. "The biggest mistake we could make would be to overprogram the thing."

But with the energy and innovation which has been devoted to this project, student dissatisfaction might well be the least of the planning committee's worries.

"Logistically, the proportions of this project are nightmarish," Parsons says. "I am amazed by what it takes get things done here."

"But we will get them done, and when that happens we will have created an incredible facility for Harvard College," he adds

"This is an integral part of the project," Parsons says. "When we are done with the upgrade of Sanders Theatre and the renovation of Lowell Hall, we will have significantly improved the facilities available to the performing arts groups at Harvard."

Parsons says these groups were one of the planning committee's main concerns, as the original plans called for them to be ousted from Memorial Hall with little thought as to where they might end up.

"Because of the exponential growth we've seen in the arts here in recent years, it became obvious that we would have to do something to turn around the costs we would be inflicting on these groups," Parsons says.

Other groups like the Salient, the Harvard Islamic Society, Raza and the Black Students Association could end up at the current Hillel building after it moves to Rosovsky Hall, construction on which is expected to be completed by September, 1994.

Liberal monthly publication Perspective, whose offices are presently in Memorial Hall, may not have sufficient meeting space after it moves next winter, according to President Jesse M. Furman '94. "We don't know where we're moving yet," he says. "But it will probably be a huge inconvenience, especially since we're moving in the middle of the year."

Furman says the new offices might not provide enough room for both production and conferencing. "What I'm worried about right now is the year and a half of lag time between the time we move and the time we can meet at Mem Hall," he says.

Furman is optimistic that the access to new resources will benefit Harvard students campus-wide, regardless of the inconvenience to his organization.

"I really think that in the end, for the Harvard community, the trouble will be worth it," he says.

Some groups are even using the move as an opportunity to expand their operations and improve their facilities.

WHRB, Harvard's radio station, has already undertaken a $1.3 million fund raising campaign to upgrade its equipment when it moves to the renovated basement of Pennypacker Hall next year, according to General Manager Jeremy A. Rassen '95.

Some groups will be able to return to their former Memorial Hall haunts after the commons is complete Parsons says that many of the groups whose offices now occupy the Memorial Hall basement use their space mainly for storage.

"We now have the opportunity to rethink the space we are allocating to student groups," he says. "We want the activities area to be alive, with an open door policy for groups who want to meet there."

According to Parsons, few of the groups who now use basement space actually need permanent offices there. The planning committee proposes to allow student groups to store mobile files in the commons area, moving them into activities rooms for meetings.

Parsons says he hopes to keep Sanders Theatre open and usable throughout the coming academic years, closing it for renovation only during the summer months. "It would be a major problem finding other areas where large core classes would meet if we couldn't use Sanders," he adds.

"That dining hall is going to be so fantastically beautiful when it is ready, I look forward to that day," Parsons effuses.

He takes pride in the original plans, citing the fact that, in the end, the committee "stuck close to our first concept, which must mean that we started off in the right direction."

And even if future years call for new designs, Parsons says the plans were conceived in such a way as to be flexible. "Nothing will be set in stone," he says. "The biggest mistake we could make would be to overprogram the thing."

But with the energy and innovation which has been devoted to this project, student dissatisfaction might well be the least of the planning committee's worries.

"Logistically, the proportions of this project are nightmarish," Parsons says. "I am amazed by what it takes get things done here."

"But we will get them done, and when that happens we will have created an incredible facility for Harvard College," he adds