Drafting Fun

Three weeks ago, the Joint Subcommittee of the Committees on College Life and House Life issued a working draft of a report concerning student organization event management. While this draft is not final, it lays out some important changes regarding the process of hosting large-scale social events in the College. Thankfully, the document suggests helpful and laudable common-sense measures that need to be taken to ensure the safety and success of large-scale social events. Moreover, the process by which the draft was written signifies a constructive departure from the heavy-hand paternalism that was embraced by the College earlier this year with regards to alcohol policy. We hope that this draft will go on to become sound, good policy and not become ensnared in the petty bureaucratization that often paralyzes University Hall.

The draft report lays out many policies that are conducive for holding large events on campus (those which have at least 100 people in attendance). For example, the report stipulates that student groups who are holding large events must register with the College at least three weeks in advance. This proposal will help students and the College to coordinate the dispersal of the Harvard University Police Department officers and Beverage Authorization Teams (BAT), which are required by law to be at such events, as well as assist in the logistical difficulties of organizing a large party. Many of the reports recommendation are of a similar manner and deal with the safety and smooth running of the event. All students should be able to stand behind the proposals for adjusted shuttle routes, uniformed ticketing through Harvard Box Office, detailed communication between the student groups and the BAT, and a limit on non-Harvard students that ensures at least one-third of participants belong to the Harvard community.

Although the report is mostly comprised of productive sound policy, we feel obligated to voice concern over two specific recommendations of the draft report. The first is the limit of large events to only two per day. While there is a caveat in the report that suggests relaxing the limit on specific weekends like Harvard-Yale and prefrosh weekend, we feel that flexibility should be the rule, and not the exception. Administrators validate this restriction by pointing out that few weekends have more events than would be allowed under the new restriction, but not having more events in the future because we didn’t have them in the past is a poor policy that looks backwards and not forwards. University Hall should approach student events in the role of facilitator and legal protector of the undergraduate’s safety, not as a parental enforcer of arbitrary limitations.

The second objectionable suggestion of the draft report is the elimination of the online event registration system. The subcommittee justifies this change by insisting that it will emphasize face-to-face contact between students and College staff. While the intention may be good, the logic is built on nothing better than quicksand. Apparently, the Subcommittee believes that because they have relatively free days, we do as well. Unfortunately, those pesky things called classes stand in most students way from being able to have hour-long sessions of filling out forms under the watchful gaze of college staff. Much of this planning is done at night, during students’ free time. If University Hall agrees to burn the midnight oil, then perhaps they could justify eliminating online forms. However, this step only represents one more bureaucratic hurdle set up against fun. (Not to mention that printing out hundreds of PDFs a year doesn’t quite align with University Hall’s goal for a green campus.)

Other than those two points, the letter of the report appears sound. But the spirit in which the administration carries out these changes will ultimately determine the effectiveness of this policy. So far, the draft has been formed in a collaborative fashion. Representatives of the Undergraduate Council, College Events Board, HoCos, and cultural societies were all invited to the subcommittee to express the needs and wishes of student groups. This stands in stark contrast to the dictatorial and opaque method by which the College’s new alcohol policy was changed earlier last fall. We encourage the administration to continue down this path by not turning these guidelines into petty bureaucratic rules that punish students if they show up to meetings a minute late or don’t cross their t’s. The first step toward success would be University Hall’s embrace of transparency by telling students when these guidelines will be effective.

Overall, the draft report on student organization event management is a positive step in ensuring the safety and success of large student events. However, student life consists of much more than events with more than 100 people. There are many more steps that the college can take to ensure a balanced social and academic life for all Harvard undergraduates. The College needs to take proactive steps towards increasing accessible student space for smaller events. Other things, like increasing the pub’s hours and creating a mechanism to encourage individuals to host parties, could make large strides in improve student life. It is imperative that positive steps of the draft report should be viewed as the first steps—not the last.