Social Activities: Punches, Dances, Message Service

"Creeping sociability" might be a good name for the elaborate program of punches, dances, and other activities that the Summer School has devised for its students. The only trouble is that it doesn't creep. It gallops.

The race starts Tuesday evening, July 3, immediately after the Convocation in Sanders Theatre, when all the convokees will betake themselves to adjacent Memorial Hall for what will be, quite unashamedly, a Big Dance. Admission is free, refreshments are free, and not even the traditional Harvard indifference is likely to keep many people away.

Mixer and Square Dances

After Tuesday sociability will be on much more of a grass roots level, but the Summer School administration will provide various opportunities for students who may have flunked the first big test to redeem themselves--or merely for people who like to dance to enjoy themselves. In contrast with past summers, which saw orchestra dances at the Union at an admission charge of about $1.00 per person, this season will feature six Friday evening dances--three phonograph-record mixers and three square dances--at the cost of only 25 cents per head. And as a sort of climactic note there will also be, for the first time, a semi-formal dance, which will take place in the Union on Friday, August 3. Admission charge will be $1.50 per couple, all Summer School students and their guests are invited, and all are presumably free to make their own definition of "semi-formal"--within bounds, of course.

Besides the dances, there is the more distinctive institution known as the Yard Punch. These are weekly events, scheduled for Wednesday afternoons between July 11 and August 15, which pretty much resist description. One can say, however, that dress is informal, punch unspiked but cold, and attendance virtually unanimous.

Yet all this is not nearly the half of it. Regularly scheduled social gatherings arranged by the Summer School, enjoyable as they may be, are almost insignificant when compared to the multitude of little ways in which the School is working every day to make sure that Oklahoma A. & M. girl meets Harvard boy, that International Seminar participant from Korea gets to see Boston, and that romantically inclined couple find out where they can rent a rowboat.

The whole operation would probably strike many students as over-organized and meddlesome--if it didn't happen to be so convenient.

Nerve center for the Summer School's whole extra-curricular program is Grays Hall 1-2, near the southwestern corner of the Yard. From these rooms some 700 messages each day are carried by foot to dormitory rooms throughout the Yard; in these rooms, attractively outfitted with modern furniture, including television sets, students may receive guests from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week; and at desks in these rooms sit Mrs. Clouser and Miss Jaeger, who have all sorts of information about such things as nearby beaches, weekend carpools, and laundry service (basement, middle entry of Grays, from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 25 cents a throw).

The magic telephone number for all this is KIrkland 7-7600, Ext. 2147. The office is open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., with messenger service going on at 1 p.m.

The message service itself is a pretty amazing thing, proving as it apparently does that there was some sense in the pony express idea after all. Since most students living in Yard dormitories for the summer do not have private telephones, the Gray Hall office will take any incoming telephone message between the hours of 1 and 11 p.m. every day. It then makes two copies of the message, keeping one at hand and sending the other via immediate messenger to the dormitory room of the person being called. If you miss the note in your room, you can always pick up the duplicate at Grays.

Once the messages have been received and the persons involved have finally gotten together, there are various Summer School facilities that they can use for their social pursuits. In addition to the information service and the common rooms in Grays, the Harvard Union has a number of rooms which are open until 10 p.m. for reading, talking, and the like. The Union is also getting a television set, which is expected to draw a large audience as political convention time approaches. And then there are always the libraries--especially Lamont, with its air conditioning, seat cushioning, and most pleasing summer policy of opening its doors to women.

Yet even the Harvard Summer School, sociably inclined as it is, will go only so far in this direction. Students will note the basic rule that "Men are not to be received in women's dormitories," and regular Harvard College students living in the Houses will note particularly that, in contrast to the winter policy, the vice-versa applies for them.

The women's dormitories are closed for the night at 1 a.m., but through an involved process of ringing bells for the police and signing the "Late Sign-In sheet, the young lady may occasionally return later.

For any extra-curricular problem that the Grays Hall office cannot handle right off, students are referred to the Summer School's Counselors for Men and for Women. The latter is Miss Joan E. Hartman, who can always be reached at Kirkland 7-7600, Ext. 2147, or by appointment via Mrs. Clouser. The former, Robert Glynn, is available over the same extension during the day, and at Holworthy 19, Ext. 2181, for night emergency calls.