How H Bomb Got $2,000

Of the 750 grants awarded this year, the Undergraduate Council’s recent grant to H Bomb has drawn by far the most controversy and received the most publicity. Many students have questioned how the council’s grant process approved this funding for the proposed magazine on sex and sexuality at Harvard. But a more complete understanding of the grant process is critical to assess the validity of a grant like the one H Bomb received.

Council grants help fund hundreds of Harvard’s student groups. The Council’s Finance Committee (FiCom) never loses sight of the fact that every year students contribute $35 each through their student activities fee each to the collective pot. So when reviewing a grant application, FiCom bases its decision on both the impact the project will have on those directly participating and the impact it will have on the rest of the student body—because ultimately, both groups are paying for the project.

The main beneficiaries of council grants are small projects. Seventy-nine percent of the grants we have awarded this semester are for projects with a need of $500 or less and directly affect between 60 and 100 undergraduates each. These projects include forums, speakers, study breaks, cookouts, cultural events, mixers and panels. Put together by a handful of dedicated volunteers and attended by several dozen students, they offer opportunities for students to engage on a personal level with others. To promote these projects, we fully fund two-thirds of these requests and provide an average of 65 percent of the amounts requested by the remaining third.

But while a myriad of smaller events collectively improve campus life, there are a few individual projects that directly benefit a significant portion of the student body—and consequently receive large grants from the council. These projects include events like large performances, displays in the Science Center and musicals. The council contributed over $4,800 last semester to H-Club to buy “Crimson Crazies” t-shirts for hundreds of undergraduates, food for home-game tailgates and other activities that boost school spirit. The Harvard College Democrats’ "Conversations with Presidential Candidates" series this fall was awarded $2,400 by the Council for hosting the candidates in Kirkland House’s Junior Common Room. The Quincy Collective has received $2,895 this year for exposing students to quality concerts by Harvard musicians. And let’s not forget Harvard-Radcliffe Television and the Kuumba Singers, groups to which the council awarded a combined total of $3,200 this year for sharing their artistic talent with the campus as a whole.

Most Harvard students have benefited directly from at least one of these events, if not several—but even given the broad impact these projects have, they still make up only two percent of the grants the council has awarded this year.

Student magazines, the center of the past weeks’ controversy, represent an entirely different category. The office of Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 officially recognizes 26 student publications on campus. They cover a wide range of subjects: from the politically charged Salient, Perspective and the Harvard Political Review; to the culturally oriented Harvard Asia-Pacific Review, Zalacain, Diversity and Distinction and Yisei; to light-hearted humor magazines like SATIRE V, Swift and The Lampoon.

The council currently provides funding for 18 of these student publications. From FiCom’s perspective, they tend to fall somewhere between small student projects and campus-wide events. Without question, students who produce these magazines are tremendously impacted by their involvement. The intrinsic personal value, which is similar to that of other small campus projects, is the first consideration added to the award.

We then examine a publication’s expected impact on the entire student body, which varies widely between publications. When it comes to campus-wide appeal, the impact of any particular magazine often tends to be more restricted than anyone might initially assume. Printing several thousand copies and door-dropping the entire campus does not guarantee a proportionate amount of interest. FiCom must try to ascertain how many students will actually read a particular magazine as it decides how much of the request it can allocate from the student body’s funds.

This becomes especially significant given the expense of creating a publication. That cost can run from a couple thousand dollars to nearly $20,000, according to the applications we have received this year, and averages $5,100 per magazine. Compare that with the average of $216.86 requested of the council by 79 percent of our applicants, and suddenly the dilemma becomes clear.

Given our current budget, we have to consider campus impact with added scrutiny. And regardless of how individuals feel about its projected content, there is little question that H Bomb is going to be read, discussed and debated by a significant segment of the campus much like the large projects listed above. Given these postulates, the council’s estimate of 4,000 students reading H Bomb’s first issue is not only reasonable—it is probably conservative. Based on this, the council agreed to contribute slightly less than $0.50 per student reader—after taking into consideration the impact on the creators. This is commensurate with past decisions in funding large scale events.

The debate on H Bomb’s content will no doubt go on, but the amount granted is a clear product of the consistent consideration process we use for every grant request. By supporting student groups, including H Bomb, we hope to ensure that opportunities for involvement continue to grow and impact every member of the campus community.

Teo P. Nicolais ’06, an economics concentrator in Lowell House, is the chair of the Undergraduate Council’s Finance Committee.