Harvard Controls the Weather

It is hard to argue that Harvard doesn't control us in a myriad of ways. We have adopted a new language that speaks of concentrations, teaching fellows and visual and environmental studies, and surely our world views have shifted slightly. We can't help but develop superiority complexes and a taste for elitism when cloistered in our houses. However, Harvard has crossed some lines. No longer just an influential parental figure, Harvard has gotten the God-complex. Yes, I'm afraid that Harvard University has been using it's might and power to control the weather. Perhaps this sounds rash; after all, we all had that circular picture of evaporation and rain in our eighth grade textbooks, but by looking at some evidence, it appears our weather is indeed being tampered with.

Let's begin with sporting events. First came the Harvard-Yale game. The weather had been getting colder and winter jackets were appearing when suddenly, on the day of the game, the weather couldn't have been better. It was pleasant and crisp, and students cavorted in the grass outside the stadium, without a hint of the impending winter. It only made sense that we won; it would have been silly to lose after the sky had been cleared so effectively. Then what about the soccer games? At the first round of the NCAA championships, Harvard won rather dramatically. It was relatively chilly out and a little damp, but a rainbow stretched over the field in the second half. Harvard doesn't send out cheerleaders to soccer games, just rainbows. Needless to say, the rainbow did the trick. The next game didn't go nearly so well, and rain poured down. No top level Harvard dean bothered to stop the rain and that was that.

And what about parents' weekends? Either crisp fall with brightly colored leaves or balmy spring days greet the onslaught of parents who are checking on their little darlings. Observing the gorgeous campus, they can only go away pleased, unaware of the sunless days that plague their kiddies when no one is around with dollars to donate.

Graduation hasn't been rained out in ages and ages--no spring showers there. And it is impossible to find out when it has rained on Commencement. Definitely in 1904 and perhaps once in the late 1960s. Maybe in 1978 but no one really knows. An Oliver Stone conspiracy here? Harvard flubs on weather control and erases all records of rain! Maybe. Just lucky coincidences that all goes well for Harvard weatherwise when they really need it? I think not! You may ask why then did it rain during the soccer game or at the Head of the Charles? Well, if it was always too perfect people would begin to get suspicious. This way the University subtly protects itself.

Pre-frosh weekend? The first sunny weekend of the spring just happens to be that weekend? First-years are giddy in the sun, hanging out in the yard playing frisbee, emerging from their rooms and behaving like college students for the first time since they arrived. Wide-eyed pre-frosh can't help but think Harvard isn't as bizarre as it is reputed to be. Then they come and discover the truth: the gray, the reclusive students, the stressed out over-achievers contemplating mediocrity. No playing in the sun here. And there is no sun anyway!

So if Harvard can control weather, why such disgusting gray wetness and muddy snow most of the year? Why not have beautiful sunny days every day? Let me put it this way. What is Stanford? A very fine school in California where it is always beautiful. And how do they do in the infamous U.S. News and World Report college rankings? Obviously if it was splendid day after day, students would never get anything done. People would wander down to the river with a book or two and become sidetracked socializing, or perhaps close their eyes in the warmth and sleep in the sun. On a sunny day it's hard to resist a jog, a bike ride or a nap down by the river, and consequently grades would plummet from the happy B+/ A- territory to the occasional B-, and (ahhhh), maybe even C's would appear on a few papers.

Harvard has a plan. Confronted with the cold outside world, we hurry home to our rooms and flip on our computers and bask in the sickly glow of the screen in our own hopeless attempt to create a light source. Halogen lamps sell by the hundreds as students try to desperately avoid the darkness that hangs over the campus when the outside world won't be observing. And safe in our hiding places, we do our work. Occasionally we venture to the library, an indoor heated area designed for study. True, Lamont is the most social place on campus, which means that for every minute of study we get to whisper for 5 minutes. The weather keeps us inside huddled with computers and books, focused on homework.

It benefits the University in all ways to control the weather; it ensures that on occasions when outsiders will be looking in, the school will glow with color and be enveloped in pleasant temperatures, and during the majority of the year when it is freezing, students will be inside reading. Harvard's discretionary use of its weather control power guarantees that the administration's ploys will not be discovered and students will stay in their rooms and gripe over GPAs or the most recent U.S. News and World Report rankings.

Sarah B. Jacoby is a junior living in Mather House.