A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Consultants are coming to campus, and some of them aren't here to recruit. First, University Health Services (UHS) hired a consulting firm to conduct student focus groups on mental health resources. Then, this past Monday, another consultant went to work, distributing surveys concerning Loker Commons. We at Dartboard do not need any consultation to see the emergence of a disturbing trend.

First, some thoughts on the UHS consultants. These people were paid to devise the brilliant scheme of offering pizza and movie tickets to students in order to solicit their gripes concerning health services. What an ingenious approach! Who would have thought that students would respond to such sly enticement!

We thank God that such clever people are willing to rent their brainpower to perplexed institutions like Harvard University.

Apparently the issue of Loker Commons is also too confounding for University officials to handle. Again, the paid consultant, in this case Kathleen I. Kouril '82, also decided to (gasp) ask the students!

The resulting student survey includes such innovative queries as "What things would have to be changed to make you use Loker Commons more often?" Somehow, we're not surprised that the University did not consider this sophisticated approach--another consulting fee appears to have been well-spent.

We at Dartboard wonder if some larger motivation is really behind the University's consulting proclivity. After all, many of these consultants are likely to be Harvard graduates. Kathleen I. Kouril graduated from this very institution in 1982. Are these hirings part of some covert Office of Career Services program?

We close with some consulting advice of our own, offered out of the kindness of our hearts, gratis. Whenever the University faces such daunting dilemmas as how to make a student center more welcoming, (perhaps they shouldn't have designed it to look like a shopping mall food court), they should simply turn to the College's senior class. Next year, that same input might very well cost $100 per hour.