Moving In Is Hair-Raising

As the Class of 1999 moved into the houses for the first time this week, months-old complaints about being randomized to the fields of Cabot or the heights of Mather were replaced by more pressing concerns.

Suddenly sophomores were hit with the symptoms of Post-Yard Depression--weariness after trekking to the Quad in the absence of shuttle service, frustration over having to share one CUE guide among four suitemates, hunger from eating minimally while house dining halls remained shut.

It's hard enough having to leave the well-kept, pastel-hued interiors and recently restored brick exteriors of the Yard dorms for the houses' Sophomore Specials--first-floor rooms, walk-throughs, linoleum-floored cubicles. But Harvard's laissez-faire attitude toward sophomore move-in and toward our adjustment to house life makes a difficult transition unnecessarily worse.

The start of sophomore year is accompanied by none of the fanfare of first-year Orientation Week, which is not a bad thing. Leaving behind the mixers and plodding proctor meetings is an affirmation of our maturity and progress. But though fanfare is fine as a thing of the past, extending a little welcome mat would not hurt.

A start would be to tell sophomores before they arrive in Cambridge where they will be staying and who their roommates will be. This is done for first-years and surely can be accomplished in the houses with a bit of planning and effort on the part of administrators.

Juniors and seniors, who have housing lotteries in the spring, know the configurations of their rooms and know with whom they will be staying. They can plan ahead and not be left in the position of two unfortunate sophomores who, unable to contact their unknown roommates over the summer, shipped two refrigerators to Cambridge when they only needed one for their common room.

Second, the college must improve the dining and transportation services it offers to upperclass students reporting early. Scores of us show up before the first meal of move-in week--Thursday's lunch--to proctor exams and host events for Orientation Week, train for athletic teams or table and poster for extracurricular recruitment.

By not providing even limited meal service, the college sends an unwelcoming message to those of us who come early to help first-years get adjusted or to serve the community in other ways.

Equally aggravating to many is the lack of regular shuttle service until the first day of classes. Students were required to show up for registration on Friday of last week, but regular shuttles did not begin until yesterday. Whether students need to get to the Yard or the Square for classes or other reasons, it is unreasonable (and unsafe) to force students to walk back and forth from the Quad or from Mather.

Harvard should foot the bill for staffing the shuttle during move-in week in the name of fairness to those who reside, now by no choice of their own, a considerable distance from the rest of the college.

The blase approach of the administration toward sophomore move-in is epitomized in the ridiculous plight of Pforzheimer sophomores, who had to lug their stored belongings--futons, 'fridges and all--from the basement of Hollis to the Quad by handtruck.

Many of us who didn't face long walks instead had to contend with rooms in various states of disrepair. In my Leverett room, upon arrival, four of six window screens were broken, paint was chipped on the walls, heaters and ceiling. The toilet seat was broken, sink faucets leaked, the door basket was ripped off, a light fixture was missing, a door handle was loose and curtains did not close.

In one sophomore's room in Apley Court, the wood floor was covered with a layer of gray grime that would take hours worth of elbow grease to lift.

With good reason did one first-year friend remark that if I took as much time filling out my "Condition of Suite" form as she did for her comfortable Grays quarters, I wouldn't be done until spring semester.

The superintendents of the houses, with firm guidance (and monetary support) from the masters and the College, must pledge to make every room at Harvard as livable as every other in advance of the school year. Seniors and first-years pay no more in board than sophomores, and their service should be no better.

To wait for the first few weeks of classes to complete repairs in sophomore rooms interrupts our busy schedules, and makes for a depressing first few days in rooms sometimes all too close to those of a tenement.

As a Leverett resident, I cannot complain about a lack of welcoming events, having been on a worthwhile sophomore outing to Woods Hole last week. But friends in other houses did not have such an opportunity to meet each other and be welcomed to house life.

And, with shopping already having begun, I have not discussed course plans with a tutor and have no plans to do so in the near future.

The final sophomore insult is one that will not go away when the boxes are stowed and the floors scrubbed: limited cardkey access leaves us in unsplendid isolation from friends whose phones may have not yet even been connected.

The security arguments for 24-hour access for all students in every house should now be familiar: universal access would make propping doors for friends from other houses obsolete and would make students more hesitant to mindlessly admitting those without an ID of their own; it would remove the easy target of a student waiting alone for someone to come out of a house so that they would be able to enter.

But there is another reason that universal access should be implemented now: in this age of randomly scattered sophomores, not being able to get into other houses to visit friends is yet another deterrent to a friendly start to a second year.

Sophomores have enough to worry about in adjusting to our new settings, picking new classes and learning to live with new roommates. Move-in week is no time for Harvard to be skimping on its responsibility to feed and shelter us. Harvard may enjoy a 99 percent retention rate, but the administration should still welcome its sophomores back with open arms--not the back of its hand.