Bring Your Lucky Dice

I am almost ashamed to admit it, but it is true. At the eleventh hour, I am suddenly a Loker Commons convert.

This fact is a bit embarrassing to reveal. After all, I have spent a great deal of energy in the last year or so complaining about the terrible quality of the planning, design, atmosphere, and food that Loker has to offer. However, since in spite of its flaws the space is quite convenient for a quick bite to eat--or to check e-mail, or to get cash, or to use the phone--I have begun to visit it more and more, and to be taken in by its charms. I have found myself stopping for a leisurely lunch, striking up conversations, and even (gasp!) studying there once in a while. What I have started to find is that Loker spoils me rotten: I get to see members of my first-year proctor group I had lost touch with over the years, to bump into a visiting student living off campus who actually went to my high school, and to see the woman I hosted one pre-frosh weekend enjoying her choice to come to Harvard. On top of all that, I like the food.

It is a shame that I have come to feel this tenderly about the space, because, after all, Loker is doomed. Whatever becomes of Loker in the next five to ten years, the subterranean commons is marred by virtue of its place in campus geography. As a student center, it is a little too close to Annenberg to be an appealing outing for first years who come to the building three times a day already. At the same time, it is far enough from the river and the quad houses that there are plenty of other options for food or social activity that are closer to home. Finally, it is entirely too close to the graduate dorms, making the commons usually grad-student heavy. Short of a tax on graduate students--which I find a rather appealing idea--none of these fundamental features of the Commons will change, no matter how many sofas and televisions are added.

Therefore, to make Loker a place where undergraduates wants to go, the space must undergo a radical change. It must offer something to undergraduates that they cannot get anywhere else within walking distance.

Since the Loker survey did not get a very high return in Winthrop House (it had a one percent response rate, in contrast to the overall student response rate of nearly ten percent), I decided to do a survey of my own in the dining hall. I gave my housemates the chance to suggest their own ideal use for the space. The only requirements: it had to draw students and it had to (a novel idea!) turn a profit.

The suggestion that leapt to mind for many people was the oft-discussed need for real fast food. One friend suggested settling the question of which vendor will have access to the elite Harvard market by opening up a giant mud pit outside the Science Center and charge admission for the chance to watch a representative from each of the country's major fast food chains duke it out with weapons of his or her choice. Another friend suggested opening up a seedy pool hall, while another proposed a bowling alley, or a swimming pool, or a slip and slide. From petting zoos to roller rinks, anything seemed more appealing than Loker's current incarnation.

One of my enterprising housemates suggested gutting the facility entirely and replacing it with LokerLand, Cambridge's answer to Foxwoods. He claims that having a full-service casino within walking distance would be a windfall for campus coffers, especially if Crimson Cash is good for currency and all debts can be term-billed home. Another friend even suggested that our illustrious deans could sing "Wannabe" for tips in the smoky lounge (perhaps in place of where the book swap now stands). "Meet me under the painting of Catherine Loker," students will say. "And bring your lucky dice."

Fantasy aside, it is truly difficult to watch Loker struggling again and again to define itself. The void of not having a true student center is felt clearly by a large number of undergraduates, as evidenced by the high response rate to the survey. Whether the book swap area will house a TV room or a blacjack table, Loker needs to provide students not just entertainment while they are there, buy also a reason to come in the first place. With just a little imagination, the place has the potential to be dynamite.

Corrinee E. Funk's column appears on alternate Mondays.