Cheerleading Gift Chair Builds Harvard Spirit

Whoever said school spirit does not exist at Harvard has not met Elizabeth B. Stoeckel ’03.

The peppy, petite blonde is both co-captain of the cheerleading squad as well as co-chair of the Senior Gift Committee.

“I really like Harvard,” says Stoeckel—and that’s an understatement.

Stoeckel in fact is literally head over heels for Harvard—her five-foot frame makes her the designated cheerleader who is thrown in the air for various stunts during football games.

Harvard pride runs in the family. Her brother, Luke, graduated from the College in 2001 and her sister, Emily, will enter as a first-year in the fall. At the head of her family is James W. Stoeckel ’74, an All-Ivy quarterback who won the Bushnell Cup as the league’s best football player.

A cheerleader in high school, Stoeckel was naturally drawn to the Harvard cheerleading squad. Since her early days on the team, she has spent her college career trying to make others love the school as much as she does.

Stoeckel has channeled much of her extracurricular energy into improving Harvard’s squad and raising its profile, starting with the summer following her first year when her experience at a cheering camp made her want to improve Harvard’s relatively amateur squad.

By improving the squad, she says she hoped that overall spirit and pride in cheering on the Crimson teams would swell. Stoeckel worked as a recruiter, and made sure that the squad was constantly working to improve itself—both practicing and watching videos of better squads around the company.

As co-captain of the cheering squad, she also worked to raise the group’s profile on campus in the hope that it will help build spirit. Stoeckel and the squad participate in various campus-wide events—from the Hasty Pudding Parade to the Arts First weekend festivities—in addition to their regular cheering duties.

With so many different groups on campus and so many diverse activities going on any given weekend, Harvard has less of a focus on its athletic teams than many other schools—and thus it is more difficult to build campus-wide spirit.

“Harvard is not like a state school, where having a good football team is all that inspires pride in people,” Stoeckel says.

Her pro-Harvard spirit drew her to the Senior Gift Committee this year.

As a former Crimson Caller, she was a natural—she had honed the skills necessary to call people and get them to consider giving to the University.

She spent this year calling seniors personally, running social events and mixers on behalf of the gift and generally publicizing the importance of reciprocating Harvard’s generosity.

“A lot of people don’t understand why Harvard wants their money during the Senior Gift Campaign, but it is not about the money. Senior gift is only $10. It is not about making money it is about starting to give back to Harvard,” says Stoeckel.

“Harvard can be a place where the extracurricular involvement is a wonderful addition to an amzing education,” she adds. “I think people here forget that this place is unlike anywhere else, that people at other schools aren’t as committed to their activities and studies at the same level.”

In the end, this year’s gift drive was the most successful since 1996. Ever energetic, Stoeckel says that she so enjoyed interacting with people through the senior gift drive that she would now consider a career in development.

As witnessed by her presence and her dedication to Harvard, her personality has helped to build building school spirit.

“I can be reserved,” Stoeckel laughs. “I just don’t enjoy it as much.”

—Staff writer Maria S. Pedroza can be reached at mpedroza@fas.harvard.edu.