The Un-College

Last weekend, the College seemed a lot like a college. You know the place where everyone says you have “the best four years of your life”? Harvard was that place. The campus had a pulse: concerts by Busta Rhymes and Kuumba, Eleganza and the Freshman Musical, an ’80s dance in Leverett and a Black Men’s Forum party in Dunster, and Springfest. As a college, we had fun; it was the kind of weekend that goads a giddy sense of school pride, and it happened here at Harvard.

Unfortunately, wide-eyed pre-frosh were misled into the false belief that we have a thriving campus social scene. Au contraire. The painful reality is that last weekend was an anomaly—a sore thumb of fun. Between the twin weekend pillars of The Game and Prefrosh Weekend, there is a vast emptiness of lackluster Fridays, silent Saturdays, and siesta Sundays. the College often seems like the Un-College; campus-wide events, parties and concerts are few and far between.

But this is nothing new. We all know about our mundane campus life. We complain about it unremittingly. We write articles in Fifteen Minutes longing for the Yale vibe and throw Harvard State University parties hoping to make the College into, well, a college. What is surprising, however, is that despite our incessant complaints, many among us exhibit a lack of willingness to effect positive change and an unabashed willingness to derail those who try.

This week, the Undergraduate Council has put forward a proposal to increase the student activities fee from $35 to $75 in order to fund more of the events we complain there aren’t enough of. Detractors, understand this: the only organization that has the ability to influence campus life on a large scale is the Undergraduate Council—University Hall is not directly accountable to students and never will cater to their desires. Moreover, campus life will not spontaneously improve by the force of our complaints; the need for the council to take on a larger role in improving campus life is clear. That they will need a larger budget to do so should be obvious.

Some have argued that the proposed fee increase is too much, too fast. But compared to peer institutions’ student governments, the council is drastically under-funded. While our council’s budget hovers near $200,000, the Undergraduate Assembly (UA) at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school of comparable size, controls a budget of more than $1.1 million. Those advocating a gradual increase in council funds, linked to an index of inflation, fail to realize the supreme inadequacy of the council’s current budget. At even the highest proposed annual rate of increase, six percent (a figure derived from the inflation index for Higher Education), it would take nearly 28 years for the council to have a budget on par with UPenn’s UA—class of 2032, this one’s for you.

Most of the events of last weekend were either organized or funded by the Undergraduate Council, and weekends like that should not be an anomaly. Those who fear that the council is not structurally ready to handle such a large increase in funds can rest assured that along with a doubled budget will come more than doubled enthusiasm, energy and creativity to make good use of it—a plant does not grow before it is watered. Let it grow. Vote to increase the student activities fee so that we can live up to our moniker of the College.

Michael B. Broukhim ‘07, an editorial editor, lives in Pennypacker Hall.