Cleaning Harvard to Cleanse the Soul

“I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It’s amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floors,” D.H. Lawrence wrote.

For all the students who have never cleaned dorms, the idea of working for Dorm Crew is unfathomable. Their hesitance is understandable—Dorm Crew workers sometimes have to clean the worst of all possible bathrooms, with mysterious hair on the walls, stains on the toilet, and flakes of unidentifiable white matter stuck to the tiles—but that doesn’t mean that Dorm Crew has nothing to offer to student employees.

In fact, manual labor can help students build character, something that Harvard has placed much emphasis on recently. Manual labor performed through Dorm Crew can help foster a sense of community and appreciation for the school. Given the benefits it has to offer, Dorm Crew deserves a special slot in every student’s calendar.

Harvard should introduce a service requirement asking students to take part in Dorm Crew activities, such as setting up chairs for events through the Yard Operations crew, organizing facilities with the Facilities Management Operations, dusting dorms, helping in the kitchens, or, yes, cleaning bathrooms. Students would have the option to work alongside their friends, and by the time they graduate would have to fulfill 40 hours of service to the college.

Many academic institutions, both high schools and colleges, public or private, already have a service requirement. North Carolina School of Science and Math, a public high school, requires its students to volunteer for three hours in a school department every week and for 60 hours during one summer. St. Paul’s School, a private boarding school in New Hampshire, includes service as a part of graduation as well. Albert Dorman Honor’s College in New Jersey asks that its students fulfill 15 hours of service every semester.

Considering the previous policies, Harvard’s service requirement would be manageable in comparison. Nevertheless, students may complain—Rodrigo Plaza, ’14, Dorm Crew Captain for Cabot House, said in an interview that “a lot of students will be pissed” at the service requirement. “When I first started, the work could feel degrading at times,” Plaza said. “I couldn’t help thinking that I was cleaning somebody else’s toilet.”

But though wiping toilets may be discomforting, it is this very discomfort that wipes the film off students’ eyes. Patrick Duffy ’14 has worked considerably with Dorm Crew and states that the “work is very humbling, which is very important when you go to one of the most prestigious schools in the world.”

Jennifer Zhu, ’14, who worked for Spring Clean Up ’11, states that her experience with dorm crew has helped her understand the value of money. “Working for so many hours teaches you values more than people lecturing you…it’s a completely new experience. You feel more grown up and on your own, and it’s a genuine life lesson.”

Zhu also drew positive insights from the service hours the fulfilled at NCSSM, where she volunteered weekly in the kitchens. “My work gave me a whole new respect for people who do that on a daily basis,” Zhu. “It was definitely not too much to ask from us. We saw it more as a way to give back to the school.”

Similar sentiments can breed on Harvard’s campus with this new service requirement. Harvard has one of the best college dorm systems in the nation as well as top-tier facilities—gyms, dining halls, rock climbing walls—for its students. The least students can do is to give back.

Furthermore, students can connect with each other through their service and also really help other students by cleaning their spaces for them. “You get to know your Houses very well. I feel like I know the college in a very intimate way.” says Duffy. “It feels good helping another student. You’re cleaning their toilet for them.”

Such a service program at Harvard would benefit its community on all levels, from the individual student to the student body to the entire Harvard community and all its facilities.

St. Paul’s School states that its community service program is instilled to “educate the whole person.” In the end, an education needs to be a little dirty to be good.

My Ngoc To, ’14, a Crimson editorial writer, is a social studies concentrator living in Pforzheimer House.