CCL Approves 11 Groups

The Committee on College Life (CCL) approved 11 new student organizations yesterday morning, including the Harvard Celtic Club, the Harvard College Southern Society and the Goose, “an absurdist publication dedicated to bringing humor to the Harvard community in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme, and Joseph Heller, among others.”

The College released a report this August finding that Harvard has an unusually high number of student groups in comparison to the undergraduate population, and a subcommittee of the CCL is now reexamining procedures for approving and regulating those groups.

Yesterday, however, the CCL approved all 11 groups unanimously, although members expressed some concerns before giving the okay to several of the organizations. At the last meeting in October, the CCL approved nine out 10 of the student groups. The Celtic Club had been declared defunct several years ago, and members of the CCL—which consists of students, Faculty members and College administrators—raised concerns about whether the group would be able to stay active. They also raised questions about whether a new group called the United World Colleges at Harvard College had institutional autonomy, which Harvard requires. The founders of the new group attended secondary schools that belonged to United World Colleges.

The other groups that were approved were the Harvard College SCUBA Club; the Harvard College Nigerian Students’ Association; the Harvard College Real Estate Club; the Pacific Northwest Club; the Harvard College GeoSociety; College Matters, a public service group which sponsors seminars about applying to college; and the Mic Club, an organization devoted to stimulating interest and support for hip-hop artists and fans.

Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd also updated the committee on the actions of the CCL Subcommittee on Harvard Student Organizations.

“We’re getting testimony from three recently formed groups, and inviting members of defunct groups in to talk to look for trends,” Kidd said.

Kidd also said the subcommittee hopes to develop a recommendation for the College’s policy towards final clubs, fraternities, sororities and women’s social clubs by the end of spring 2005.

In addition, Special Assistant to the Dean for Social Programming Zachary A Corker ’04 told the committee that he was working on forming sophomore and junior class social committees similar in format to the First-Year Social Committee.

The CCL generally supported the idea and Corker said he hopes that elections for the new arms of the Undergraduate Council could take place as early as January.

The committee also discussed the aftermath of the Harvard-Yale tailgate. The Boston Police Department, which has threatened to ban student tailgating at the 2006 Game, will meet with top administrators from the College on Monday.

—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu