Making Harvard Home

In most colleges, as you enter an undergraduate dormitory, you walk down a hallway full of open doors. In the afternoon, students congregate in rooms on each side, chatting, doing homework in groups, watching movies. Spare time is spent socially, interacting with friends rather than with a computer screen.

This experience, the very essence of “dorm life,” is rarely replicated at Harvard. From the moment first-years arrive on campus, they are divorced from the rest of the undergraduate community. They live in their own dormitories, on their own section of campus, with their own dining hall. In the spring, whatever community is formed among first-years as a class is torn apart when the housing lottery rolls around. Once tossed randomly into Houses, students face a whole new challenge in trying to re-form a community having already made friends scattered around campus.

Yet, despite these challenges, “dorm life” as the rest of the college world knows it is not unachievable at Harvard. There are several ways students and administrators could work together to improve residential life.

The most important and most revolutionary step Harvard could take towards this end would be to replace many of the proctors in first-year dormitories with upperclass Residential Assistants (R.A.’s). This system is the norm at many other universities, in the Ivy League and beyond. There would be several immediate benefits to this system. First-years would immediately meet upperclass students on an intimate basis; there is no better way to get to know people than to live with them on the same floor or entryway. Moreover, by being in constant contact with first-years, R.A.s would become trusted and valuable resources, able to mentor and advise them on all the varied aspects of College life.

The prefecting program makes some strides towards bridging this gap between upperclass students and first-years, but in light of the infrequent contact between prefects and their first-years, it cannot provide the same level of advising as an R.A. system. Study breaks once a week do not give first-years an opportunity to have meaningful interaction with upperclass students. Occasional outings are pleasant, but are too rare to foster a true sense of kinship. Most first-years think of their prefects as nice people, but they are unlikely to search them out to talk about anything substantive.

While prefects provide too little presence in first-year dormitories to be sufficient advisors, proctors are forced to do too much—by taking on the role of both advisor and disciplinarian. The proctor-student relationship has been compromised because of proctors’ responsibility to be both authority figures and friends. Because proctors are not a confidential resource, students often find it awkward to talk to them about sensitive subjects.

Furthermore, although all proctors have some Harvard connection, many are not graduates of the College and are unfamiliar with its classes, concentrations, professors and archaic regulations. As a result, proctors’ academic advising has tended to be hit-or-miss; some first-years get lucky, others don’t. An R.A. system would relieve the advising pressure on proctors by giving much of the general college advising over to undergraduate R.A.’s. In this way, the line between advising and discipline would be drawn more firmly, and first-years would be provided with more comprehensive advising overall.

While R.A.’s would take the place of most proctors in first-year dorms, proctors should not be eliminated entirely. It is necessary for some authority figures to keep order in the Yard. And because R.A.s cannot have access to other undergraduates’ academic records, they cannot be responsible for the formal academic advising proctors provide. However, with R.A.’s present, it would only be necessary to have one or two proctors in every first-year dormitory. In this case proctors would be unable, because of sheer volume, to assume responsibility for all academic advising in their dorms. Yet, this would not be a problem if the College simultaneously expanded the number of non-resident advisers. Professors and teaching fellows should be given incentives to adopt several first-years who are interested in their field of study. We have long advocated this step because it exposes first-years to relationships difficult to forge on their own.

Being an R.A. would not be an easy job; upperclass students have many other time commitments and responsibilities. But with the proper incentives, many more qualified upperclass students would apply to act as a live-in resource for first-years than could be accepted. For some who live in the more distant Houses, the idea of a room in the middle of campus would be enticing enough. Cutting or waiving room fees for R.A.’s would not only draw many applicants, it would also alleviate some of the space crunch in the Houses. Programs like the First-year Outdoor Program have already demonstrated that upperclass students are more than responsible enough to take on the role of mentor, advisor and friend to first-year students. If Harvard students can be trusted to guide first-years through the wilderness for a week before the year begins, they can certainly be trusted to guide first-years through their initial semesters at Harvard College.

Bringing R.A.’s to the Yard would help foster first-year community. But additional steps must be taken to revitalize the Houses as centers of undergraduate life. Randomization has brought diversity to the Houses, an admirable goal we support, but it cannot be denied that the Houses have lost their former sense of community in the process.

To remedy this situation, House Masters and administrators must seek greater student input into using House space productively. Each House has a Junior and Senior Common Room, but they are rarely used by students on an informal basis. Instead, they stand idle for large portions of the year. The House grills are a promising place for students to congregate, but many are open unreliably and poorly publicized. Students in the Houses must take a more active role in redesigning these spaces so they are more conducive to student use. As demonstrated by the newly renovated dining halls, a little reorganization can go a long way towards improving atmosphere.

What’s more, House Committees organize the most successful social events on campus. Their experience in successfully bringing students together should be harnessed to create proposals to better utilize House space and resources. Some HoCos, however, have been more successful than others. As some have suggested, HoCos from all the Houses should meet regularly to share ideas and success stories. While each House should and will continue to plan unique House events, there is no reason that the elements that determine a successful event in one House cannot be borrowed and replicated by another. Finally, because they are so good at drawing students together, HoCos should receive more funding from the Undergraduate Council.

Though undergraduates can seek community elsewhere, residential living should act as an essential component of community at Harvard. Currently, Harvard students live together, but a true sense of residential community is rare. To foster more genuine and substantive interaction among students in each dormitory and within the College as a whole, Harvard must take aggressive steps towards improving the undergraduate residential experience.