Lessons from Lamont

With grubby hands aloft carrying oozing pieces of Finale chocolate cake, with enough quesadillas to feed a family of five stuffed in their pockets, and with manners usually reserved for Korn concerts, Harvard students at the Lamont 24/5 party on Monday showed their quality. And it was abhorrent.

The event was characterized by two attributes that are mutually exclusive at all other college campuses. It was in a library. And it was the school’s best attended “party” all year. If the Committee on Campus Life and Harvard’s Undergraduate Council (UC) aren’t careful with their next co-sponsored party, they might just resuscitate Harvard’s social scene. Maybe next time they could hide a pile of burritos somewhere in the periodicals section of Widener. Yes, this is the state of fun at Harvard.

Still, the real question is whether the Lamont 24/5 party was a celebration of student advocacy, as intended, or a low blood sugar-induced bum rush. It only took a few minutes of watching Harvard students stream out of Lamont with entire chocolate cakes leaking from within the inside flaps of their jackets to realize that the focus was squarely on all things edible. This represents an incredible opportunity for the UC. If all it takes to summon a horde of students is a stack of tacos, the UC could theoretically hold the entire Harvard administration hostage with strategically placed Mexican food and the threat of ravenous student stampedes. Imagine. UC President Matthew J. Glazer ‘06 is Aragorn; Felipe’s is Anduril. And we hungry Harvardians are the Ghost Army at his back. Next stop: Harvard University Dining Services to rape, pillage, and secure unlimited Congo bars.

Tolkien and joking aside, the most apt comparison with Monday’s Lamont party doesn’t invoke Middle Earth. Rather, Lamont’s orgy of opulent consumption should be contrasted with the contemporaneous atmosphere at the new Quad Library. While Lamont was, at least for a few minutes, full of food, light, and books, the Quad Library boasted floor lamps without lightbulbs and a puny reserves section. Lamont is open 24/5. The Quad Library is open between seven and ten hours a week Sunday through Friday and closed on Saturdays.

The blinding inequality between libraries started some student advocacy of its own. A new student group, Quad United Against Library Discrimination (QUALD, err...QUAD), made its debut on Monday by protesting on the steps outside of Lamont. In a country wracked by war and continuing social inequality—at a University where student town halls on the Harvard College Curricular Review regularly pass unattended—it’s comforting to know that one of Harvard’s numerically biggest protests of the year so far was against library injustices. The campus as a whole seems to be saying, “bring our troops home, but get us an extra copy of The Prince on reserve first.”

Maybe it’s time for this campus to wake up to the advocacy successes of the UC and other student groups. Maybe it’s time for us to look beyond library hours for more epic struggles to throw our weight behind. And maybe it’s time for us to stop placing quesadillas inside our jacket pockets and above common courtesy. But a straightening out of our priorities may be too much to ask for—at least without edible incentives.