The Curse of Dorian Gray '97

Friday, September 24: A day that will live in infamy. This was the day Harvard introduced its new identification cards.

The new design made most of us gawk; we marveled at the way our dates of birth were actually part of the card, not raised like the other information. We felt a glow of pride at the prominent display of the word "Harvard." The antique-looking background gave us goosebumps as we contemplated those who had passed before us. The nifty door-opening magnetic strip assured us that Harvard really is on the leading edge of technology.

But all this is peripheral. What we were all really interested in was the pictures. And what pictures they are.

Complicated calculations indicate that we have seen almost 1.2 per cent of undergraduate ID's. Plenty for some gross generalizations. We have determined that the new ID's fall into three categories.

There is the Walking Dead category, people who seem to have been killed, then made over with rouge and lip gloss. Then there are the marginally luckier people who appear to have just returned from roasting under tanning lamps. Finally there are the hybrids, those who fall between categories, appearing both dead and tan.

This is more than a simple annoyance; it is a fundamental question of rights. For years it has been the right of the Harvard student to conveniently "lose" an ID when faced with a particularly atrocious picture. Now, with computer technology, our faces are sealed forever in some University hard drive. Lose your ID and you'll be faced with the same old mug shot, again and again.

What of growth, character development--or simply new haircuts? None of that matters anymore. Like Dorian Gray, we are locked in the same face that we had on those fateful, rainy days.

A phone call to the Harvard Management Company (HMC) last week turned up an interesting twist on cultural awareness: the company's non-Jewish leaders weren't there, and according to one secretary, they were celebrating Rosh Hashanah.

HMC President Jack R. Meyer, his assistant Meg McFadden and HMC Treasurer Verne Sedlacek were all out when a reporter from The Crimson called. Asked where they all might be, Sedlacek's assistant, Joyce Carroll, replied, "I don't know."

"You don't know?" the reporter persisted incredulously.

"No, I don't," Carroll replied. "A lot of people are out today. You know, it is a holiday--the Jewish new year."

"True," the reporter, himself Jewish, acknowledged. "But Mr. Meyer isn't Jewish."

Neither, it turns out, are Sedlacek or McFadden.

Wonder who's repenting today, on Yom Kippur.

Three-thousand and Counting:

The phone calls required of a Crimson reporter to obtain information from the office of the Registrar approached the figure in question, an approximation of the number of students expected to register at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) last Wednesday.

The exact number, ultimately obtained from Associate Registrar Gayle E. Merrithew, totaled 3,423.

Inquires were routed through various divisions of the Registrar's Office, as Registrar of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Georgene B. Herschbach was out for the day. This was the second day of Registration week at the University.

After several unreturned phone calls and an unsuccessful transfer to the dean of GSAS, the Registrar's Office ultimately relented and informed The Crimson of this administrative detail.

Editorial staffers David L. Bosco '95 and Brad Edward White '95 compiled today's