Dean of Students Dunne Says College to Host ‘Safe’ Harvard-Yale Tailgate

Dean of Students Thomas Dunne said the College hopes to plan a “safe” tailgate for the Harvard-Yale football game in November, as his office attempts to keep the event orderly while subduing criticism that Harvard’s officially sanctioned student events are unfun.

In a Wednesday interview, Dunne said the Dean of Students Office hopes to plan a tailgate “that is attractive to students and fun and feels like what they imagined Harvard-Yale to be, but it’s also safe.”

In 2022, the last time Harvard hosted The Game, the DSO faced backlash for placing restrictions on alcohol at the official tailgate and prohibiting student-organized alternatives. Harvard’s final clubs threw an unofficial tailgate on the Malkin Athletic Center lawn in response.

But Dunne said Wednesday that he is “working through what the alcohol policies will be,” adding that he hopes to avoid unsanctioned student tailgates.

“The idea of tailgates popping up in different places is something that we don’t want to replicate,” Dunne said.

“Our goal is to be in a space where there’s thousands of students together, and then everybody goes into the game and has an awesome in-game experience, and then we beat Yale and feel great about ourselves,” he added.

During the interview, Dunne also addressed the search for the next Harvard College Dean, saying that he hopes the pick will match Rakesh Khurana’s commitment to undergraduates.

In August, Khurana announced he would be stepping down from the position in June 2025. The College announced a search for his successor in a September email to undergraduates.

Dunne said he is optimistic about the search, though he acknowledged that not all candidates will be able to match Khurana’s “selfie game” — referring to his ubiquitous Instagram account.

Still, he said, the next dean should focus on “celebrating the magic” of the student experience.

“One of the greatest assets of Dean Khurana’s leadership has been, at such a deep, deep level, he really values and cherishes the student experience,” Dunne said. “Beyond social media, watching him navigate spaces — watching him in a dining hall, even when he doesn’t realize he’s being watched, watching him walk across campus — that’s what I hope for at some level, in their own way.”

“The silver lining is, I’ve learned, there’s actually a lot of people like Dean Khurana at Harvard,” he added.

Dunne said that Khurana left a lasting impression when the two first met at a conference nearly a decade ago.

“I was so struck by him, I started following him on Instagram, which is not surprising to students,” Dunne said. “I have an Instagram gateway story to Dean Khurana as well.”

“I just found him really captivating,” he added. “So I started following him on Instagram, never expecting to end up working with him.”

Dunne — who took over as dean of students in June 2023 — has worked closely with Khurana on intellectual vitality, an initiative that began in 2021 to foster a campus atmosphere of “open, thoughtful conversation.”

At a recent HUA meeting, the HUA Co-Presidents said they spoke with Dunne about potential intellectual vitality initiatives for the year such as “tracking intellectual engagement via surveys and anecdotes.”

Dunne said he has additionally hosted student groups to his home in Harvard Square to “facilitate conversations.”

“​​I think that one of the through lines in all these conversations that seems to come up at some point is this sense of, ‘How do we build authentic communities?’” Dunne said. “That’s something that seems really important to people,” he added.

—Staff writer Madeleine A. Hung can be reached at madeleine.hung@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.