Keeping in Touch From a Distance

Like most upperclass students, Jonathan M. Harlow '99 did not recieve letters or e-mail from Harvard University over summer vacation. However, he took the official silence as a sign that, after the bureaucratic problems associated with the 'Returning Student' form he turned in late, he had secured a room in Eliot House after all.

After taking the '97-'98 year off and spending time in Japan, Harlow returned to Harvard briefly this summer, providing Eliot House office with his new Japanese address and phone number, just in case they might want to drop him a line. "In June I informed people that I wanted to be in the House," he says.

Then he returned to Japan for the rest of the summer, and heard nothing. No notes. No anonymous mailings. Zip.

"After [June] I got nothing from my House or from Harvard--no e-mails, no phone calls," he says. After leaving messages in July asking what was going on, Harlow assumed House administrators worked the situation out themselves, arranging for his housing in absentia.

Upon returning to America, expecting the usual back-to-school ritual exchanges of hugs and how-was-your-summers, Harlow received a shock: he was not penciled in for Eliot housing after all.

"It was 99.9 percent my own doing," he says, nothing that he had filled out his 'Returning Student' form months after deadline. "The one thing that bothers me is that no one contacted me to let me know that this was going on."

The Harvard Housing Office, the office responsible for coordinating housing for all students on campus, has no statistics available regarding the number of students who arrive on campus facing housing problems. However, Housing Officer Mac Broderick says difficulties are few when students follow the rules.

"Continuing students who submit the room contract and form and students returning from leaves of absense who submit the returning student form by the appropriate deadline are guranteed housing," he says. Those that don't are placed on a 'space available' list, and must wait their turn.

Harlow says the Eliot House Masters, Senior Tutor and Harvard Housing Office have all been helpful and caring since he's been at Harvard. But the paperwork gaffe now has him temporarilly ensconced in a corner of a friend's living room, waiting to hear good news from Harvard but also hedging his bets by appartment-hunting off-campus.

"If you know anyone who's a little depressed," he jokes, "Tell them to leave" (and bequeath him their room).

While first-years are inundated with mail from the College, affiliated clubs and publications, upper-class students do not receive rooming assignments until they arrive in Cambridge--essentially all that comes during the summer months are the bills.

"Other than bills, I didn't get anything (from Harvard) all summer," says Ryan G. Schaffer '00.

"I got the 'Courses of Instruction' book about a week before I came up here. It would have been nice if they had sent us our room assignment and phone numbers," he says.

Many upper-class students with less serious problems than Harlow, or even none at all, would appreciate more administrative contact with the Collage over the summer vacation.

J. Welles Henderson '00 prepared to greet a floater this fall when his former roomate decided last spring to spend the semester studying in Paris. But he expected to spend the second half of the year living with his former roomate.

"The way that we left it in May with our House housing person was that it was pretty much guranteed that we would be put together when he gets back," says Henderson.

The reunion was not to be, however.

Henderson was notified in July that the reunion was not in the cards. In addition, his rooming group was assigned a permanent transfer student instead of a semester-long floater, preventing his roommate from returning to their suite.

"In retrospect, after I came back here and found that there were about 15 (permanent) transfer students in my house, not one semester floaters, which makes it look extremely unlikely that there was ever a high possibility that [he] could rejoin us," says Henderson.

Henderson's complaint is basically the same as Harlow's: it is about Harvard's lack of contact.

"Whatever the case may be, I wish that we had been told earlier that he probably wouldn't be able to live with us," says Henderson. "I don't know if we would have done anything differently, but we might have."