In First, College Names Czarina

The College named Haining Gouinlock ’07 as next year’s Fellow for Campus Life, selecting the first woman to oversee undergraduate social programming since creating the “fun czar” position three years ago.

Gouinlock said she will focus on encouraging students “to take ownership of their fun” by helping them create their own events and to take advantage of newly created student space in Hilles and Loker Commons.

The role of fun czar has evolved since the position’s creation in 2004, moving from planning campus-wide social events to developing the nascent student-led College Events Board. A focus for the coming year will be to take these developments and “work with students to make some institutional history around it,” according to Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II.

Gouinlock’s responsibilities will include working with the College Events Board and developing programming for the Student Organization Center in Hilles (SOCH) and the Cambridge Queen’s Head, the pub whose long-awaited opening is set for April 19.

She will succeed current fun czar John T. Drake ’06 on July 2.

Gouinlock was chosen because of her “really fantastic resume,” McLoughlin said. “Her real skill set was that she has a proven history of working closely with students.”

Gouinlock, a biological anthropology concentrator in Pforzheimer House, has served on the Junior Class Events Commission and the executive board of the Prefect Program, and now is a member of the Student Advisory Board of the Advising Programs Office and the College Events Board.

“I would rather get up and do the carnival than a problem set any day,” said Gouinlock, adding that she wanted to pursue a career in event planning following her year working in University Hall.

“She has worked on the type of programming that we’re interested in and that she’ll be working on this coming year,” McLoughlin said.

The position of Campus Life Fellow developed from the College’s hiring of Zac A. Corker ’04 in 2004 as special assistant to the dean for social programming. Current Fellows are appointed through Harvard’s Management Fellowship Program, which awards graduating Harvard students with one-year fellowships to work on University initiatives. The cost of the fellowship is shared equally between the President’s Office and the College, according to McLoughlin.

McLoughlin stressed that Fellows are not hired to fulfill a particular mold but instead encouraged to make their term “[their] own.” The fact that Gouinlock is the College’s first female czar is “good for us,” according to McLoughlin, but he added that the College was not looking to hire a female specifically.

Seven seniors applied for the job, according to Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd.

“It was really a difficult selection, probably more than any other year,” McLoughlin said, adding that the candidates—particularly the three finalists—had spent their undergraduate careers involved in activities relevant to the position.

—Madeline W. Lissner contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.