Arco Was Appropriate

When a famous person speaks at Harvard, it would be terrific if everyone could get a ticket. But at a school with 6700 undergraduates, 2,000 faculty members and an additional 11,000 graduate students, it is simply not practical to accommodate all members of the Harvard community.

In line with the IOP's mission of encouraging political involvement in undergraduates, 80 percent of the audience at Hillary Clinton's speech were students (more than half of whom were undergraduates.) The IOP went even further to reach out to undergraduates by renting out rooms in the Science Center, so students without tickets had the opportunity to watch the event.

The Forum, which is owned and maintained by the Kennedy School, was built for the purpose of such events and contains all the necessary audio and video equipment to broadcast live speeches. Sanders Theatre, the only larger auditorium at Harvard, is not conducive to such events and would only allow for 200 more tickets. The Secret Service would have had to shut the entire complex down for the day, canceling all classes in Sanders and surrounding classrooms, and forcing all freshmen to find an alternative location for lunch.

Instead of whining, we should feel fortunate that, thanks to the Institute of Politics and the Kennedy School, we as Harvard students have the unique opportunity to interact on a regular basis with prominent political figures such as Mrs. Clinton, Yasser Arafat, and the Hon. Dali Lama.