Social Space Solution?

Harvard has no fewer than three art museums, two Gutenberg Bibles, and 13 million volumes in its library system. But, in spite of all this, it has yet to acquire the one thing that many undergraduates would most wish to see—a student center. In fact, what might be the closest thing the campus has to such a venue—Lamont Café—is located in a library. Therefore, in its prospective plans to investigate a purchase of 45 Mt. Auburn Street—the building that formerly housed the Democracy Center—the Undergraduate Council makes a noble attempt to address the important problem of social space at Harvard. Yet purchasing 45 Mt. Auburn may not present the solution that the Council hopes.

If the UC owned 45 Mt. Auburn, the impacts for students and the university community as a whole no doubt would be positive: Harvard would finally have a venue (albeit a small one) that could serve as an official social space for students. But, by the same token, these benefits would be small, especially given the space constraints—there are approximately 6,000 undergraduates at the College and room for only a few hundred in the Mt. Auburn Street property. Also, there is the thorny issue of the UC’s ties to the administration and the potential impact this would have on alcohol policy. Since the UC’s budget derives largely from termbill fees, it might not be able to provide the venue many students imagine when they picture the ideal social space at Harvard. In other words, 45 Mt. Auburn Street would most likely fail to solve the social-space problem.

It is also seems somewhat unrealistic for the UC to raise the necessary amount of money in the proposed time frame—a daunting $600,000 by September, followed by several million over an extended period of time—especially given the current economic climate. We therefore do not recommend that the UC pursue the purchase of 45 Mt. Auburn Street, as the plan is unlikely to be successful and may detract from other valuable goals and projects.

Efforts to solve the social space problem at Harvard are admirable and important. But this particular initiative may not be something worth pursuing. And, while the social space problem will persist, we hope that the UC tries to find other solutions in the future.