HUA Passes Laundry and Ping Pong Initiatives at General Meeting

The Harvard Undergraduate Association passed proposals to fund an Affordable Laundry Initiative and restock ping pong balls at tables around campus during its general meeting Tuesday evening.

The Residential Life Team and Inclusion Team each allocated $1,000 toward placing free laundry detergent in 45 laundry centers, including both first-year dorms and upperclassmen houses.

The initiative will create a separate “Laundry Grant” through which students can apply to be reimbursed for laundry machine expenses.

“Students will apply and then fill out the reimbursement form at the end of finals period,” said Inclusion Team Officer Lily E. Liu ’25.

During the meeting, the HUA also allocated $20 weekly from the Residential Life Team’s budget to restock ping pong balls across dorms and campus spaces under the “Harvard Ping Pong Revitalization Initiative.”

Social Life Team Officer Sophia F. He ’27 said the funding will allow the team to purchase approximately 200 ping pong balls, which the HUA will then allot to popular tables around campus, such as the ones outside the Science Center plaza.

“Nine times out of ten, there are no balls when I go there, and many of you might be able to testify to that,” He said.

Extracurricular Team Officer Joel O. Crawford ’26 announced that the HUA’s Extracurricular Team had concluded its review of club applications seeking to become officially recognized student organizations.

“We had over 100 applications. We approved about 70 of them,” Crawford said.

Crawford added that the Extracurricular Team notified all clubs of its decision and recommended approved clubs for the next round of review. Assistant Dean for Student Engagement Andy Donahue will review the HUA’s recommendations before making a final decision on whether clubs get approved and move forward to a mandatory three-part training process.

“That number may go up and down depending on next steps, but at least the first round is finished. They’ve all been recommended to go to the next round,” Crawford said.

At the meeting, HUA Co-Presidents Ashley C. Adirika ’26 and Jonathan Haileselassie ’26 said the HUA is currently looking to recruit people to serve on the HUA’s Election Commission, the body in charge of running HUA elections.

Last spring, the HUA’s Election Commission had outsized importance in approving separate petitions to recall then-HUA Co-Presidents John S. Cooke ’25 and Shikoh M. Hirabayashi ’24. The Election Commission — which ran the recall election that removed Cooke from office — came under the spotlight when it did not immediately discipline Cooke for campaigning against his recall and breaking the Election Commission’s rules.

Haileselassie said the Election Commission will be in charge of administering the HUA’s annual fall referendum, which will pertain to HUA policy and governance.

“We were able to resolve the constitutional issue that sparked the pause in the beginning, and so now we’re currently in the process of putting together our fall referendum,” Haileselassie said, referring to the constitutional reforms the HUA implemented three weeks ago.

“We’re working on the specifics of the wording,” he added.

—Staff writer Adithya V. Madduri can be reached at adithya.madduri@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @adithyavmadduri.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.