The Ghost of Harvard Past

Consider the following: one student pulling an all-nighter with a dozen Budweisers at his side to finish (i.e. start) a paper and then spending all of the next day sleeping until crew practice; a group of guys scanning the freshman facebook for the hottest girls they can find; a shy and awkward Harvard undergrad from California becoming one of the world’s most-renowned pianists immediately after graduation; friends driving together to the Harvard-Yale game, sleeping on cold floors for the night, and tailgating starting at 10 a.m.

These anecdotes are taken from Erich Segal’s novel “The Class,” which follows five Harvard undergraduates in the years 1954-1958. I find little need to explain the parallel of these stories to our lives as Harvard undergrads today.

Which causes me to wonder—how far have we actually come from the days of Harvard-Radcliffe? Are we simply endlessly repeating the experiences of others while thinking we are members of the newly enlightened (a.k.a. modern and superior) batch of Harvard kids?

Consider the following passage near the opening of the book:

It was Monday, September 20, 1954. Eleven hundred sixty-two of the best and brightest young men in the world were lined up outside that monstrous Victorian gothic structure known as Memorial Hall. To register as members of the future Harvard class of ‘58.

Running the sartorial spectrum from Brooks Brothers to hand-me-downs, they were variously impatient, terrified, blasé, and numb. Some had traveled thousands of miles, others a few blocks. Yet all knew they were now merely at the beginning of the greatest journey of their lives.

At the beginning of this year, Harvard finally decided to enter the 21st century like the rest of the world by turning to online registration and study cards. But despite this change (and the somewhat dramatic description of these “young men” as preparing to enter “the greatest journey of their lives”), I think it more than likely that most of us arrive here today with the same varying degrees of excitement and trepidation that some of us have come from the furthest corners of the world and others from just down the street, and that all of us are in our own ways looking for that “great journey” we envision our Harvard experience will be. Not to mention the few and proud who come with Brooks Brothers outfit in hand.

But the similarities don’t stop there. In fact, “The Class” is filled with images of Harvard traditions, academic experiences, and social scenarios that could be substituted for descriptions of our current lives with only a few minor changes to details.

Of course, I would not be able to write this article in any light of truth if I did not note that there are apparent differences between Harvard today and Harvard 50 years ago. To begin with, the integration of women into the college has entirely altered the composition of both House, academic, and social life. No longer are women referred to as “Cliffies”, do they reside only in the Quad, or is Radcliffe written on their diplomas.

In addition, randomization has significantly changed our House system in recent years. But even in his 1958 description of the Houses, Segal refers to them as, “what makes Harvard—and, I have to admit, Yale—different from every other university in America.” Today, the essential idea behind the Houses has survived: they are designed to help students build relationships with House tutors and masters, foster social interactions, and develop an attachment to a place we can call “home” for three years. In this particular sense, Harvard is still very much the same.

In fact, in almost all aspects of modern Harvard life, vestiges of Harvard’s past creep in like Charles Dickens’ first ghost of Christmas who comes to scare the Scrooge. In a time when the world around us is changing faster than Paris Hilton’s boyfriends (consider the internet, DVD’s, and the recent cloning of a dog), I for one find it particularly comforting to know that my own college experience will be almost hauntingly similar to that of the men who walked the halls of Sever and Emerson over 50 years before. Only I’ll be walking in pink stilettos, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those navy blue blazers that were once all the rage among Harvard’s fashionable elite.

Sure, Harvard has some ground to cover in terms of “catching up” to the rest of the world. While we may be at the forefront of scientific discoveries and have the premiere political thinkers and literary geniuses of our day, Harvard, in my opinion, remains slightly behind the times when it comes to full-fledged equality for women, greater social and economic stratification, and the bursting of that Harvard bubble that leaves us all feeling like we’ve been living in a weird mix between a young-adult daycare and an Old Boy’s Club when we graduate. I sometimes get the urge to pull out a pipe and sit in a red leather chair discussing Kant with my cronies. (And I don’t even smoke…or know what cronies really are.) I recognize, however, the need to appreciate Harvard for all that it is—an institution overflowing with history and traditions that I believe one day will make even the most cynical of us nostalgic.

Fifty years from now, Harvard might have fully expanded to Allston, doubled its undergraduate population, and completely restructured its course offerings, but it is my hope that what makes Harvard—well, Harvard—will still remain.

Jillian N. London ’07 is a philosophy concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.