Tour Groups Banned from Science Center

On the heels of a University decision to ban tours from the Science Center, most Harvard tour groups say they are relatively unaffected by the change.

Jana L. Douglas ’12, a tour guide for the Harvard admissions office, said that over the summer, when she started working for the office, tours were allowed into the Science Center. The building’s new policy has forced their tour groups to adjust accordingly.

“We’re still kind of figuring out what we could do instead,” Douglas said. “For now, we’re just walking in front of the Science Center and seeing it.”

According to John D. Mathers, the senior facilities manager at the Science Center, the building decided to bar tour groups from entering the building because tourists were intruding on classrooms and student life.

“Tourists entered the back of an auditorium during a lecture, snapping photos and chatting,” Mathers wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson. “The addition of another 40 or so non-Harvard persons standing around taking pictures simply creates an impediment that is not needed.”

Recently, tour groups have become a fixture of the Science Center lobby, especially during the winter months when many tours retreat into the relative warmth of the building’s entryway.

According to tour guides from the admissions office, even before the Science Center banned tours, tour groups were allowed into very few Harvard Buildings. With the new policy, Memorial Hall is the only building that the tours can enter.

Alexandra M. Rose ’12, a tour guide for “The Hahvahd Tour,” said that the group did not take tourists through the Science Center and that the company had not told her of the new policy.

Douglas said that she rarely saw people from the Harvard admissions office tour attempt to explore the Science Center on their own.

“The tour ends at the [Charles] river, so I doubt anyone’s going to walk back to Science Center at the end to see it,” she said.

Other tour groups said that the Science Center had never been a designated stop for their tours and that they were only minimally aware of the new policy.

—Staff writer Mercer R. Cook can be reached at mcook@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Hana N. Rouse can be reached at hrouse@college.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION: SEPT. 15, 2011

The Sept. 15 article "Tour Groups Banned from Science Center" incorrectly stated the class year of Alexandra M. Rose. She is a member of the Class of 2012, not 2011.