Few Students Vote on New Ring Design

Only about 20 percent of current undergraduates voted on a potentially permanent official Harvard class ring design during a five-day election.

The 1,234 undergraduates who voted on their favorite design chose from options displayed on the Undergraduate Council’s website in a vote that coincided with the council’s general election. The class ring voting ended last night at midnight—36 hours after the conclusion of the council’s election.

Matthew J. Glazer ’06, the council’s liaison to the six-person board that oversaw the ring voting, said he was disappointed in the low voter participation given the magnitude of the decision.

“I would have liked to have had a higher voter turnout, especially for such a permanent decision,” Glazer said.

While the possibility of changing the ring’s design in the future is not out of the question—a new ring board will be selected for next year—Glazer said that he hopes that this design will last.

“The plan right now is that this ring will stay the official Harvard ring indefinitely,” Glazer said.

This year’s vote was the first of its kind and a result of the joint effort by the council and Harvard Student Agencies (HSA), which sells the rings, to provide Harvard students with one official class ring.

Students had five options for the top of the ring, four options for the sides and three options for the interior. The winning top, side and interior designs received 37 percent, 48 percent and 53 percent of the votes respectively.

The new official Harvard rings will be sold at The Harvard Shop on JFK Street, a subsidiary of HSA, and possibly several other locations.

Harvard Shop manager Caleb J. Merkl ’06, who was HSA’s liaison to the ring board, said that while he does not yet know exactly how much the rings will cost, they will be cheaper than in years past. Since HSA will offer only one ring option rather than many, it will be able to sell them at a lower price.

“The partnership between the [council], the ring vendor and HSA will make the ring price lower,” Merkl said.

Merkl said that actual samples of the ring will arrive for Junior Parents Weekend, and will then be presented to students in a ring ceremony at the end of April.

While the basic design is intended to be constant, students will have some individual flexibility in the ring design they choose. All students will have the option of replacing their House shield on the side with the letter “H” and the option of having a blank interior instead of the winning design.

Currently only about half of Harvard undergraduates buy a class ring, compared to almost 100 percent at MIT—where a one ring program is already in place.

In other election news, the council’s Election Commission unanimously ruled last night to accept the appeal of J. Sawallah Guseh ’06 to overturn their previous disqualification of his candidacy. Guseh will again serve as one of the representatives from Currier House after demonstrating that he made a full faith effort to comply with the election commission’s previous ruling.

—Staff writer Evan M. Vittor can be reached at evittor@fas.harvard.edu.