'Parade of Stars' Too Cool

To the editors:

There has been, recently, a murmur of voices against Harvard's First Annual Award Nite--the much anticipated "Parade of Stars." Protesters seem to feel that perhaps the event is petty in its scope, that it creates unnecessary competition, that it attempts to judge qualities of groups where it has no qualifications to do so. I disagree.

The problem with the Parade of Stars is not that it is too broad, or that it creates too much competition; the problem is that it does not include enough events; its scope is in actuality far too limited. In order to make this event more true to the spirit that guides it, we must make some fundamental revisions in the way the awards night is run. We need to introduce new categories into the event. As it is, it limits itself to Sports, Drama, Dance, Community Service and Media/Publications. But there is so much more that happens on our campus; so much more diversity to be recognized. The organizers of the Parade of Stars completely fail to recognize such integral categories as "Most Popular Person," "Best Friend" or "Favorite Clique." We have "Best Community Service Group" (and my personal opinion is that City Step is much better than Mission Hill--I mean, it's so much cooler, and they have a dance), but we don't have "Best Religion" or--especially important--"Best Ethnic Group." Sure, we can vote on whether Football is better than Basketball, but we are denied the opportunity to decide if the "Hello, young lady" man in the square is better than the "Spare any change...ma'am, sir" lady. In short, Parade of Stars is a nice idea, but it completely ignores its larger potential as a venue for deciding who's most popular and what's cool.

In the meantime, though, I'll be buying my $8 ticket to the ceremony, getting together my semiformal attire and trying to decide if it's cooler to be worried about sweatshop conditions in Harvard factories or labor conditions on grape plantations. BENJAMIN J. MORGAN '01   April 30, 1998