(Super)Party Like It’s 2005

It’s a familiar weekend scene: a mob of Harvard students looking for a party descend upon a few cramped common rooms scattered throughout the Houses. While these sparse closets-turned-dance-clubs burst with festive undergrads, the doors to some of the most vaunted social spaces within the Houses—infamous suites like Eliot House’s “Ground Zero” and Lowell House’s Bell Tower—remain closed. Thankfully, the Undergraduate UC (UC) has proposed a solution to this madness: the UC will now offer $200 “super-party” grants to rooms of Ground Zero proportions that are able to throw comparatively larger parties. While the UC’s new initiative has major potential to enhance the College’s social scene, its success will be limited unless it is accompanied by several other critical improvements.

Under the old party grant system, the UC would distribute $100 grants on a first-come, first-served basis to those who applied for them. No further funding was available for particular party-throwers, regardless of the projected size or scope of the planned festivities. Unfortunately, this policy resulted in a disincentive for the campus’ larger suites to throw parties: because these suites can fit many more people, their parties are much larger than ordinary room parties. Consequently, the cost for them to throw a party is far higher than what most other suites would pay—so much higher, in fact, that $100 grants simply didn’t go far enough to make the final expense feasible. The new “super-party” grants will help resolve this discrepancy, making it more practical for raging parties to return to the fabled super-suites of Harvard College.

Other flaws in the current party fund system exist, however, that the super-party initiative cannot address by itself. Although parties receiving UC subsidization must be open to all undergraduates, some students solicit party grants and spend the student body’s money on gatherings that are essentially closed to non-invitees. To avoid this problem, the UC requires that all recipients of party grants advertise the parties to “a significant number of undergraduates,” but some party-throwers dodge this regulation by advertising the party on the open-list of the furthest House from their location. Instead of leaving the advertisement of parties up to those who throw them, the UC should publish a list of parties that receive grants on its website. The information could be included as part of a “This Weekend’s Parties” module on the my.harvard framework, including themes, locations, and other information relating to each of the subsidized events. Such a solution would go far in ending the days of frantic cell phone calls and cryptic, first-year-esque intelligence reports of “There’s something in Kirkland” or “I think there might be a party in the Quad.”

Further, the distinction between ordinary and “super” parties will lead to an obvious question: how will the UC determine who qualifies for a “super-party grant?” The UC has already compiled a list of the major large suites on campus, and other suites will be able to apply for future inclusion on this list. This solution will spread the new bounty of festivity beyond the well-known group of party suites, giving more students a chance to throw their own super-party. The UC should ensure, however, that a transparent and consistent standard is employed in deciding which suites are assigned “super-suite” status.

Admittedly, some may view this new initiative as an unfair policy toward those who live in singles or small suites, since they will not have access to the new super-party funds. Students do not choose the House in which they live, and students assigned to certain Houses (especially in the Quad) have no control over the fact that they will most likely not have the opportunity to live in a large suite. While these potential concerns are valid, the campus-wide shortage of sufficient weekend social space outweighs this problem. After all, even if students do not have the opportunity to host their own super-parties, the implementation of this initiative with our suggested improvements will give all students far greater access to quality parties than they have ever enjoyed before.