Corker Finishes Up a Month's Work

Don’t let the Manny Ramirez poster on the wall of his University Hall office fool you. Zac A. Corker ’04 is all business.

One month into his job as the special assistant for social programming, Corker has already dived head first into planning for the Harvard-Yale game and organizing viewings of the World Series in Loker Commons.

“If this was a puppet show with marionettes and the student leaders were the puppeteers, I’m like a puppet technician who untangles the strings,” Corker said.

Corker, who proposed the creation of his position last spring before he graduated, said he has been spending a lot of time acting as a liaison between the Office of Student Activities and students groups like the Undergraduate Council, the Campus Life Committee (CLC), the First-Year Social Committee, H-Club and the Prefect Program.

He said he has also been working closely with Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II and Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd to plan social events for the campus.

“I’m more than impressed at the extent to which colleagues are concerned with providing stuff for students,” said Corker.

So far, Corker has helped bring in two large projection screens to Loker Commons so that crowds of over 100 students can watch the Red Sox compete in the World Series.

Students will also be invited back to Loker next week to view live updates from the presidential election.

“I’m just being a ‘go-between’ for CLC,” Corker said. “Things like the [council-sponsored] bus to Salem [for Halloween] require communicating with lots of groups, and I help figure out how we make things like that happen.”

Due to increased enforcement of restrictions on alcohol and tailgating for this year’s Harvard-Yale football game, planning for The Game has also been especially time consuming.

But Corker said that he, College administrators and the council have made a lot of progress.

“All that’s left is for the University to go before the city to get final approval on the entertainment and liquor licenses,” Corker said. “I think we’ve hammered out a pretty good plan.”

According to McLoughlin, Corker has been instrumental in helping plan Harvard-Yale and alleviating student concerns about having a succesful tailgate.

“He has been running alongside of both [myself and Kidd] in terms of meetings with athletics, Boston Police Department, even Boston College representatives to help get ideas for the tailgates,” McLoughlin said. “He is really spearheading working with Matt Mahan and the UC to come up with a plan for the tailgate.”

McLoughlin also said that Corker’s presence has allowed him to accomplish more in terms of dealing with student groups.

“I’ve been very intentional about giving Zac projects so he can help as a facilitator,” McLoughlin said. “Now we can do more because there’s two of us.”

Student group leaders across campus seem to agree on the impact Corker has had on campus life.

“I think that Zac’s hiring is a signal that University Hall is becoming more serious about improving campus life and actually coming up with the resources to do it,” Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 wrote in an e-mail.

“To have an administrative figure willing to assist in with tasks like reserving space, making copies and utilizing other resources on campus we might not have thought of, means our load is a little lighter,” said Maura E. Boyce ’05, a director of the Prefect Program.

Boyce said that she and Veronica M. Rotemberg ’06, another prefect director, have been working with Corker to organize a speed dating event for first-years scheduled for Nov. 11 in Loker Commons, in addition to Harvard Idol, which debuted last year.

“[Corker] is more than happy to help us out with logistics of events and lend his support where ever we ask for it,” Boyce said.

—Staff writer Bari M. Schwartz can be reached at bschwart@fas.harvard.edu.