Key No Longer To Run Tours

The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid has decided to assume full control over prospective student tours, displacing the Crimson Key Society as the exclusive provider of admissions tour guides.

Byerly Hall will also begin to pay students who guide tours or greet guests at information sessions.

Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73 said the changes, which were “on [her] mind for a number of years,” are being implemented in order to diversify the tour guide staff, to create greater accountability and coordination and to provide more job opportunities to students looking for work during the year.

“We want to make sure we broaden the eligibility of becoming a tour guide for those who don’t make it a major extracurricular commitment,” she said. “We want to make sure a range of people get to conduct tours.”

In the past, Crimson Key chose all admissions tour guides through a selective comp process each semester. The admissions office will now select all guides.

In addition to diversifying the roster of tour guides, McGrath Lewis said that taking over guide selection will strengthen the admissions office’s coordination of tours.

Feedback from visitors to Byerly Hall had indicated that tours were sometimes seen as redundant following information session presentations.

“We want to make [visits] as seamless as possible,” McGrath Lewis said.

The new initiative will not come without a price for the admissions office, which will provide wages comparable to those of other campus jobs—a “significant” cost relative to the current volunteer system, according to McGrath Lewis.

The planned adjustments to admissions tours have not sat well with Crimson Key leadership, who said they would have liked to play a larger role in formulating the changes.

“We haven’t really had a lot of chances to discuss them,” said Glen R. Curry ’03, president of the Crimson Key Society.

According to Curry, Crimson Key officers had met with McGrath Lewis last spring to discuss proposed changes that they believed would have given the admissions office control over the content of tours, while still using Crimson Key members as the only tour guides.

But Curry and Crimson Key Vice President Brian J. Hayes ’03 were informed of the new planned changes at a meeting on Monday with Megan P. Basil ’98, an admissions officer and Byerly Hall’s liaison to the organization.

After the meeting, Curry sent an e-mail to Crimson Key members, calling the proposed changes “drastic,” and saying they were “hatched without our input.”

In Monday’s e-mail, Curry attributed the impending changes to Basil’s recent arrival at the admissions office, saying she was going “beyond the small changes that should be made to drastic changes that [should] not.”

Basil said in response to Curry’s statements, “We don’t think these are major changes.”

McGrath Lewis agreed, saying Curry’s sentiments were unnecessarily extreme.

“It’s more dramatic than I had ever thought,” she said of Curry’s reaction. “Our plan is not to exclude Crimson Key.”

“We have tried to reassure them when we met with them that we regard them as the major conduit through which guides come to us,” McGrath Lewis added.

Crimson Key members are not expected to be put at much of a competitive disadvantage in the new guide selection process, according to McGrath Lewis.

“My guess is that the Crimson Key will have an advantage because they’re so good at it,” she said. “The Crimson Key tour guides ought to be the primary contenders in this.”

Basil said that the admissions office will try to put the changes into effect soon.

“We do hope to implement this plan as soon as we can get this up and running,” she said.

Curry said that the organization’s leadership will meet with McGrath Lewis and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 to discuss the changes when the two officials return from their current vacations.

“We more than anything would like to keep the great relationship we’ve had for years,” Curry said.

Founded in 1948, the Crimson Key Society also coordinates Freshman Week each fall, and also assists with parents’ weekends, Commencement, and other events.

—Staff writer Alexander J. Blenkinsopp can be reached at blenkins@fas.harvard.edu.