New Coke Is It In Harvard Dining Halls

Millions of Americans were outraged when Coke became New Coke last spring, but Harvard officials have quietly changed over to the New Real Thing--without hearing much student protest.

"No one said a word when we changed from old to new Coke," said Philip R. Bauer, food buyer for the University. "They just see the word 'Coke' and don't even think about it."

Currently, all Harvard dining halls serve New Coke. According to Bauer, the Food Service doesn't have a choice of what Coke to serve because the Coca-Cola company has not yet put Coke Classic syrup into the five--gallon containers used by dining hall soft-drink machines.

Dining halls run by the Harvard Food Service provide students with a total of 74,500 gallons of soda each year. Some 37,000 gallons of that total is Coke. Tab comes in second.

Each dining hall serves four out of eight soft drink choices: Coke, Diet Coke, Tab, Sprite, Diet Sprite, orange, root beer, and ginger ale. Coke, the most popular drink, is in every dining hall. Second most popular is Sprite.

Food service officials at every house said that not a single student has complained about the change. Betty McNicholas of the Food Service at Dudley had never even realized the Cokes were different. "I didn't even know myself what we were serving until you called," she said.

Some people saw the situation in a more humorous light, however. "I hope you're calling about the liquid Coke," said a Paula Barksdale, supervisor at Currier. "We don't deal in the other kind."