Before Turnover, HUA Leadership Ties Up Loose Ends at Weekly Meeting

The Harvard Undergraduate Association met on Sunday for their penultimate meeting before incoming co-presidents Abdullah Shahid Sial ’27 and Caleb N. Thompson ’27 are set to take office on April 20.

In a brief meeting, the association discussed its progress on outstanding initiatives, including the administration’s impact report and the renewal of a summer storage contract with Harvard Student Agencies — the HUA’s most widely used program.

“We’re working out the kinks now, but we’re hoping to sign another contract with them,” said Co-President Jonathan Haileselassie ’26.

A total of $2,600 was also provided to the Crimson Cohesion Fund after members voted to reallocate $1,000 initially meant to sponsor a Brain Break event plus $1,600 in unused funding from the Extracurricular Team. The fund aims to sponsor student organization events for more than 200 people.

Well-Being Team Officer Sarah Bellagat ’27 pledged to continue promoting the Healthy Minds Study survey, a partnership between Harvard and researchers at the University of Michigan to collect information from students about their mental health in exchange for a $15 to $250 reward.

Bellagat said the study, which launched April 2, is likely the “only way of getting any data that matters to them in a way that they’ll be able to implement and change policy with.

“So they’re really looking for people to fill that out,” she said.

Board members also voted to allocate $500 from the Sports Team budget toward vans, food, drinks, and other utilities for a student-athlete mental health awareness event on Thursday.

The event will be an opportunity for athletes and administrators to discuss student-athlete mental health awareness, according to Sports Team Officer Sage F. Piekarski ’27.

Academic Team officer Matthew R. Tobin ’27 updated the group on the HUA’s push to expand MIT class offerings, advocate for Concurrent Master’s degrees for Bachelor’s of Science, reinstate semester-long technology loans, and ensure every Harvard database uses students’ preferred names.

“We are going to be pushing to make sure that the students’ preferred names in the Harvard database are the primary name that is used,” Tobin said. “Currently, it’s used in a lot of locations, but it’s not used everywhere.”

“Whether students have a different name that they prefer to go by — in horrible cases, it could be a dead name — we want to make sure that those are essentially not the names that are used,” he added.

Tobin also announced that the Academic Team will be meeting with the Harvard International Office to determine how the HUA can support international students.

“They’ve been doing a lot of work to help fight for international students given everything that’s going on right now,” Tobin said. “We wanted to connect with them to get more information about the work that they’re doing to help these students, and also seeing the ways that the HUA can support students and support their mission.”

—Staff writer Nina A. Ejindu can be reached at nina.ejindu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nina_ejindu.

—Staff writer Claire L. Simon can be reached at claire.simon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @ClaireSimon.