Locking Out the Key

The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid announced last month that it would assume full control over campus tours for prospective students. The decision effectively eliminates the Crimson Key Society’s previous role as an exclusive provider of tour guides. We applaud the admissions office’s decision and expect improvement in both the quality of the tours and in the diversity of the tour guides.

By abolishing the Key’s monopoly on tour guides, the admissions office has created more jobs for Harvard students seeking work on campus. Students who might want to conduct campus tours, but who do not wish to join the ranks of an exclusive organization such as the Crimson Key, will now have that opportunity. The admissions office will now attract a greater number of applicants to lead tours, and they will at last have the leverage to choose guides based on actual ability and enthusiasm—not just membership in the Crimson Key. With more possible guides for the admissions office to choose from, prospective students can enjoy a higher quality tour.

Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath-Lewis ’70-’73 is right to recognize that the tour guide staff needs to be diversified. The Crimson Key does not give prospective students the best impression of a diverse campus. Though the Crimson Key has made some efforts to reach out to minorities, its membership is still mostly white. By not compensating tour guides for their services, the Crimson Key naturally attracts students from wealthier backgrounds. Work-study students, or those who must find a job during the school year, have less time to volunteer.

With an open selection process, and with compensation for their work, tour guides will better represent the racial and socioeconomic diversity at Harvard. A diverse guide group will also project a more minority-friendly image to those on tours, attracting more minorities to apply. We hope that relieving the Crimson Key of its control over tours is a genuine effort by the admissions office to attract more minorities to campus, and they should continue their work on similar outreach programs and recruiting efforts.

Although the Crimson Key may not have offered an accurate representation of diversity at Harvard, it did use a thorough selection process and provided extensive training for tour guides. The new selection and training process should be equally thorough to ensure that the quality of tour guides stays high—and in order to accomplish this, the admissions office would do well to consult the Crimson Key. Administrators should also advertise this new opportunity widely, particularly to Crimson Key members, who have already developed valuable experience guiding tours.

The Crimson Key drilled tour guides about the history of Harvard, and their guides expertly addressed general questions about student life, but they also answered questions about uncomfortable topics—final clubs, sexual assault and the Core—honestly. That must continue; the admissions office should not take this as an opportunity to present an unrealistic, whitewashed view of Harvard’s problems. The new tour guides should answer even the prickliest of questions openly and honestly, in order to give prospective students an accurate impression of life at Harvard.

We thank the Crimson Key members for volunteering their time, even if we’ve all heard about the three lies and the tale of Harry Elkins Widener one too many times. We hope many of its members are given the opportunity to continue telling incoming students about Harvard’s distinctive history.