Fun-Loving Grad Advises Deans

Special Assistant to the Dean for Social Programming Zachary A Corker ’04 plans to watch today’s Commencement ceremonies from the balcony of his fourth-floor University Hall office. Despite the tree obscuring the view of Tercentenary Theatre, Corker has purchased a beanbag specifically for the occasion.

“It’s this gross orange thing that I got for two dollars at a senior sale,” he says.

With his perspective colored by his year in University Hall, his view of the ceremonies will almost certainly be different this time.

At 23, Corker is one of the youngest administrators to sit in University Hall. For the past nine months, Corker has worked closely with Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II and Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd to expand the social offerings for students. Corker’s position was created after he approached the deans with a proposal last spring.

“When I graduated, I anticipated being in the White House right now with John Kerry in office,” he says, referring to his previous job as a campaign staffer in Washington D.C., a position he cut short in order to return to Cambridge last October.

He never expected to become a center of media attention, but found himself thrust into the national spotlight several months after he assumed office.

Featured everywhere from Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” to the May issue of Playboy, Corker characterizes the media interest, focused on painting Harvard social life as dead, as “absurd.”

“Once anything gets in the arena of the national media, it just gets kicked around,” Corker says. “Other organizations like Bill O’Reilly just make fun of the stereotype. When you’re on top, people want to make fun of you.”

Asked to describe his job, Corker immediately tries to dispel any misconceptions of him as a “fun czar,” a title that the Harvard Gazette first coined in January and that has since stuck.

“You kind of grease the skids of student activities and events,” he says. “We have no intention to get involved in the business of social planning.”

In performing his job, he says he draws experience from his time as a senior class marshal and as Mather House Committee chair.

Corker says that he, like administrators at other schools, helps centralize coordination of large-scale events and eases the process of planning social events for student organizations on campus.

“A lot of it is being a resource for students and letting them come to you with ideas,” he says.

But Corker admits that this year, he has played a dual role as both a student resource and as an administrative planner for events like the Harvard-Yale tailgate and the immensely successful Pub Nights.

Clad in a crisp blue shirt and khakis, Corker sits in a narrow office tucked along the top floor corridor of University Hall. Posters touting the Harvard-Yale barbecue, various Pub Nights, and Springfest the Afterparty—signs of his efforts to serve as a liaison to the student groups on campus—line the walls of his office.

But Corker estimates that he spends only 60 percent of his time there. The balance, he says, is spent in various meetings with students.

“I probably have 50 to 60 hour work weeks,” he says.

While that figure far surpasses the 35 hours per week stipulated in his original contract, Corker says he works on an unstructured schedule.

“It’s by no means on the 9 to 5,” he says.

Referring to a red tie hanging from a sprinkler, which functions as a make-shift tie-rack, Corker says that splitting his face time between administrators and students has its snags.

“Dress code is a huge issue for this job,” Corker says with a grin. “You straddle the fence and you gotta be able to play both sides.”

Corker will stay on at Harvard for another year, this time as a project manager for the Harvard Pub Nights’ feasibility study.

The Harvard College Fellowship for Campus Life, a full-time position modeled after Corker’s current post, will be filled by Justin H. Haan ’05 next year.

—Staff writer Margaret W. Ho can be reached at mwho@fas.harvard.edu.