Three's a Crowd: New Student Groups Struggle To Carve Niche

Harvard's 268 student groups cover nearly every imaginable aspect of college life, often many times over. There are 23 organizations related to government and politics, 39 arts and performance groups and countless ones devoted to issues of identity.

But each year, students find new areas to address and new approaches to old ones, and 1999-2000 was no exception, with new groups formed to encompass topics ranging from jazz music to international politics to abortion rights.

These groups have faced a variety of challenges in their inception, but the founding members hope they have laid foundations this year to keep their groups going strong at Harvard long after they have graduated.

Filling a Void

To gain Harvard's official recognition of their group, students must find a mission that is not already served by an existing organization.

To this end, several groups attempted to meet an academic need they felt was going unaddressed in Harvard's curricula.

Harvard Fiction Workshop (HFW), for instance, has the same goals as Harvard's creative writing classes, but seeks to address the limited number of spaces available in those classes.

"As anyone who's attempted to do so knows, getting into one of the English department-run creative writing classes is often difficult due to the high number of applicants," says Jason F. C. Clarke '01, the new president of the organization. "The goal of the HFW is to provide an alternative to students wishing to work on their writing."

June T. Spector '01 founded the Harvard Undergraduate Chemistry Club (HUCC) to provide a forum outside the classroom where students could discuss relevant issues to the field of chemistry. She says the chemistry department has been very supportive of her efforts thus far.

"The administration, especially chemistry Head Tutor Jim Davis, was extremely supportive of our idea to start the club," Spector says. "Professor Davis was not only enthusiastic about the idea, but also helped us receive funding for various events from the chemistry department."

Many of the new student groups, though, took on causes in the community or nation, either from a service or political angle.

Wendy H. Liu '03 and Esther S. Yoo '01worked together to found Students for Healthy Babies, a group designed to "increase awareness about health issues," especially with young mothers.

"We've met the people from countless hospitals and health clinics," Liu says. "Looking back on the semester...we had events going on almost weekly."

Other groups, such as Students Against Institutionalized Slavery, which protested poor wages and labor conditions around the world, and the Harvard Right to Life Club, have taken on issues that have long been prominent on the national and international stages.

Yet others simply attempt to provide a community for students of similar background or beliefs.

Marc R. Romanoff '01 has little competition in his area. He helped found Vegitas, first informally in 1998, and last fall as an official student group, as a way to work students on an issue important to him--vegetarianism and veganism at Harvard.

"I eventually found others at Harvard who shared my views and we all agreed that we needed to group together to create a 'unified front' to represent the unique concerns of vegetarians and especially vegans to the powers-that-be," Romanoff says.

On the other hand, the Asian American Brotherhood, founded by Selby Chen '02 and Christopher Tam '02, has the daunting task of differentiating itself from Harvard's already well-entrenched Asian-American organizations.

Administrative Roadblocks

Clarke says club founders face the very difficult task of making the campus aware of their new organizations and proving the value of their groups.

But several students say the main obstacle to the success of their nascent groups has been a lack of communication from the bureaucracy within University Hall.

New student groups must apply for recognition through the office of Coordinator of Student Activities Susan Cooke. Once they receive recognition, they obtain a website and e-mail account from Harvard Computing Society (HCS) and can apply to the Undergraduate Council for funding.

"Unfortunately, the University Hall bureaucracy we...encountered was like one long bad dream," Romanoff says. "Aside from incessant delays in getting our group officially recognized, we were kept uninformed about the progress of the process. Most frustratingly, it took around five months between the time we learned we were official to the time we were granted our web page and e-mail account."

Romanoff says his group never received any official confirmation of recognition from Harvard until HCS finally gave it space for a website.

Rodney Glasgow '01, who founded Take Another LooK (TALK), says administrative assistance was essential to the founding of his organization. But after the group was created, he says, Cooke's office provided little guidance when he tried to find funding for its goals.

"We worked all year without a budget, which severely hindered what we could do," Glasgow says. "Miscommunication and lack of communication from the administration on how best to [secure funding] did hinder the group...."

Survival of the Fittest

Despite these administrative roadblocks, many student groups have found the greatest difficulties are in establishing programs and maintaining student participation.

"We aren't sure how exactly we can best help teen mothers," says Liu, whose group faces additional uncertainty because its mission overlaps with that of groups from the Phillips Brooks House Association and Project HEALTH.

According to Cooke, problems such as these lead to about 10 groups opting not to re-register with the College each year. Many of these, she says, are new publications that could not obtain sufficient advertising revenues to stay successful.

However, the students who formed this year's new batch of clubs say they are confident they will continue to fulfill a need on campus for years to come.

Darryl C. Li '01, who founded the International Monitoring and Action Group (HMAG), says, "As long as Harvard professors advise foreign governments, prime ministers come to give speeches here and students go on to have an international impact, we should be busy."