DormAid Founders Left HSA Managers In The Lurch

To the editors:

It is important that students and other readers of The Crimson know several critical facts that were missing from last week’s article concerning DormAid and Harvard Student Agencies (“DormAid Could Face HSA Lawsuit,” news, Oct. 6).

This is not simply a case of some employees wanting to go their separate ways from HSA. These students were managers and were being paid by HSA to create business plans for HSA to expand its grocery and laundry services to area colleges. These are the very business plans they took with them to expand their for-profit business to offer the same services at the same universities identified by HSA—they even tried to offer the services at Harvard. In simple terms, they took HSA’s business plans and gave us eight hours notice before they went off to launch their competing services.

HSA is a non-profit organization created to provide wages to students and to provide interesting business opportunities for students. HSA is not a business; it is a classroom. The 21 remaining HSA student managers feel betrayed and disappointed by their former colleagues. As a student of Harvard you should feel the same—these students hurt a non-profit campus organization so they could make a profit for themselves. The story of what happened at HSA this summer is one about ethics, trust, and about basic right and wrong. DormAid has taken the great experience that this not-for-profit organization offers and is using it to line individual pockets.

CALEB J. MERKL ’06

Cambridge, Mass.

October 7, 2005

The writer is president of Harvard Student Agencies.