A Place To Call Your Own

Among the plaques on the wood-panelled walls of the immensely popular, University-funded, new campus pub is one titled “Harvard Scholars.” It reads, in three rows: “Rhodes 319; Marshall 240; Truman 62.”

The unusual, if not awkward, combination of academic honors with conventional bar room decor reflects the continuing challenge of revitalizing student life on a campus that has a long reputation for lacking one.

It was a banner year for new social spaces cropping up around campus, as the College tried to address student complaints of a social life centered around cramped dorm rooms and exclusive final clubs. Additions including the Cambridge Queen’s Head pub, the Student Organization Center at Hilles (SOCH), the Lamont Library Café, and Women’s Center opened to levels of student enthusiasm that ranged from the subdued to the ecstatic.

The success of the Lamont Café and the new pub shows that students were clamoring for fresh social spaces. But contrast those spots with the empty halls of SOCH, and another trend emerges: undergraduates seek spaces that aren’t just new, but in the heart of campus.

Undergraduate Council President Ryan A. Petersen ’08 is continuing to insist that the College create a student center close to the Yard. The College, for its part, says such a plan is unrealistic, and that the new social spaces opened this year should suffice.

While few dispute that the College went a long way this year to give students new places to gather, the real debate now is whether these changes went far enough.

A ‘NEGATIVE IMAGE’

According to Petersen, the slew of new social spaces demonstrates the great need on campus for “universally accessible spaces”—perhaps indicating a desire for a shift away from the final clubs that have long been a hallmark of the Harvard social scene.

But while the pub and the café have hosted throngs of students during operating hours, SOCH—which houses the offices of various student organizations—has attracted smaller crowds to its location in the Quad.

Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd acknowledges that getting SOCH attendance levels up to those of its more popular counterparts will take much time and effort because of the “negative image” associated with Quad life on campus.

Petersen sees a similar problem, attributing the initial success or failure of social space to “location, location, location.” But while the College administration hopes to boost the use of SOCH through a well-organized publicity campaign, Petersen insists that a student center a 15-minute walk from the Yard is destined to fail.

“What Hilles shows is that undergraduates want central locations because the value of a student center is that everyone is there and using it, and if it’s distant, then it will be of limited appeal,” Petersen says, adding that the administration has not made finding centralized locations enough of a priority.

“Yes it’s expensive, yes it’s difficult, but Harvard’s done expensive and difficult things in the past. And if it were a priority, there could be a student center at the Inn at Harvard.”

But Kidd says that finding space for a student center in the heart of the campus simply isn’t feasible. “We are going to try to change what’s changeable, but what is not changeable is to create a student center in Harvard Yard.”

Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 agrees, adding that SOCH is on its way to becoming a more accepted venue in the student community. He cites the new dance center near the Quad as having been a big success with student dancers despite its location.

Manager of SOCH David R. Friedrich says that the College plans on holding many freshman events in Hilles in the hope that they will grow to use it for events and get-togethers from the beginning of their Harvard career.

“It will take time for the culture to change around this concept. [The Center] has been showing signs of success and people, so it’s really about getting the word out there at a grass roots level and having students change their perception of the Quad in general,” he says.

‘A SPACE THAT’S MINE’

The College’s attempt to forge a relationship between students and the Hilles center reflects its growing effort to involve undergraduates in creating their social space.

Student involvement may have been key to the success of the pub, which would look much different if administrators had adopted the designs of the firm they initially hired to make a plan for a campus bar. That company first proposed a three-dimensional grid for the walls and then, in a second attempt, a design featuring smooth benches molded out of the wooden walls. But throughout the process, students who were consulted were said to call for a more traditional pub, and the College eventually hired a new firm to design the space.

“Students can walk in and immediately feel like this is a space that’s mine and that I can call my own,” says the pub’s mastermind, Zachary A. Corker ’04, who was hired as project manager of Loker Commons Planning and Program Development just over a year after graduating from the College.

When the Women’s Center opened in September to some doubt over its mission and its place in the Yard, explaining to students how to make the center their own was key.

“We exist to be a comfortable and welcoming space, but that’s not the most important part of what we do,” Susan B. Marine, the center’s director, says. “As the year went on, we became better at telling people about our mission, and people became more interested in using us as a co-sponsorship venue for events as well.”

Bryan C. Barnhill Jr. ’08, the president of the Black Men’s Forum, says his organization plans to collaborate with the Center next year on a joint event.

“It’s a fantastic resource. It is a women’s center and its focus is to provide support to women on campus, but as a male student, I find the place equally welcoming to me, and I’ve actually been there many times,” Barnhill says.

After a series of fits and starts, the College’s effort to expand the campus social scene went into high gear this year. But as students and administrators look to the future, divisions are emerging on where to go from here.

—Staff writer Aditi Banga can be reached at abanga@fas.harvard.edu.