OIP Moves From Yard to Arrow St

Students considering studying abroad will now have to travel beyond the yard for information about semesters overseas.

The Office of International Programs was relocated over the summer from the basement of University Hall to temporary quarters on the fourth floor of 2 Arrow Street. According to a Faculty of Arts and Sciences press release yesterday, next fall the OIP will move to the fourth floor of the Holyoke Center into a space currently under renovation.

The OIP’s temporary home is substantially larger than the old location and includes a reading room, several offices, and a conference room, as well as a roof deck with views of as far away as MIT. The top-floor space, formerly offices for a local non-profit, is located across the street from Berryline, a popular frozen yogurt store that opened a year ago.

The removal of the OIP from University Hall raises concerns about the creation of a physical disconnect between students and the office, which is now in a less central location, if only for this year.

Word of the office movements first came in a Crimson opinion piece written last spring that characterized the decision to shuffle most of College administration out of University Hall as a disservice to undergrads.

Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds said that the relocation did not represent any overarching bias against undergraduates.

“There is no trend to the reallocation of space. We are simply running out of space in University Hall for all the programs currently there.”

The space formerly occupied by the OIP is now being used by the Office of Student Affairs, which used to be upstairs in University Hall.

The new location has allowed the OIP to hire several more staff members to accommodate the College’s rising participation in international programs. The number of Harvard students studying abroad for degree credit increased from 160 in 2001-02 to 640 in 2007-08, according to the press release. OIP staff said that about 300 students attended an open house in the new location on Friday and that many of those were freshmen.

Though no longer in one of the most central and accessible locations on campus, some students praised the OIP’s temporary office space.

“I like how it’s more open,” said Cessna T. Mac, ’11. “It’s more formal, though. And freshmen might have more trouble finding it.”