Harvard Needs Student Affinity Spaces

Harvard’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging website proudly displays its ethos: “A place where everyone can thrive.”

While the administration has made strides to create such an environment, its current efforts don’t make up for its lack of sufficient physical spaces for affinity group use. Investing in these spaces will strengthen diversity at the University and finally give affinity groups a place to both be and feel seen on campus.

The University’s current offerings aren’t enough. Harvard’s various offices and institutions, including the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, are valuable. Initiatives like First Generation and Low Income Visibility Week, the Cultural Rhythms festival, and community conversations are important in lending University support to inclusion efforts. What these offices can’t do, however, is build student culture.

Many offices serving minority students are visually hidden. The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations is housed in the lower level of Grays Hall, and the Office for BGLTQ Life is housed in the basement of Thayer Hall, both of which are first year dorms. The location of these centers seems to be symbolic of their place at Harvard: a mere afterthought for administrators.

While having a communal space like the Student Organization Center at Hilles is nice, leaving affinity groups to parcel up the space without genuine ownership is an insufficient solution. In a world where values like diversity and inclusion are under attack, it is important now more than ever for individual affinity groups to have a real, physical home on campus to build their visibility and influence.

Things don’t have to be this way. Harvard’s Ivy League peers set a strong standard for spaces explicitly used by affinity groups. Yale University hosts five such spaces, including the Afro-American Cultural Center and La Casa Cultural. Columbia, UPenn, Brown, Cornell, and Princeton all have some kind of student-accessible space tied to cultural groups or organizations.

Harvard must follow their lead, investing in new, central, student-owned and controlled spaces for affinity groups to use. These spaces, constructed through alumni or endowment funding, should be dedicated to the largest registered identity groups on campus to accommodate student events, meetings, and casual common rooms for socializing. Ownership over these spaces will allow students to cultivate a deeper sense of belonging and connectedness within their communities, creating a culture that welcomes and nurtures students of all backgrounds and experiences.

Affinity organizations give students a sense of belonging at a school that is often intimidating. A permanent space for these groups would allow them to attract more students to their programming, engage the student body more deeply, and create a more inclusive atmosphere for all students to enjoy.

Harvard’s academic excellence, revolutionary research, and brilliant opportunities all stem from a student body as diverse as the outside world. Through investment in cultural spaces, Harvard can ensure that all can thrive for now and for years to come.

Ira Sharma ‘28, a Crimson Editorial Editor, lives in Matthews Hall.