Social Planners Should Look At Student Preferences

To the editors:



In the wake of Wyclef-gate, I was interested to read on Monday that the Undergraduate Council (UC) had voted to form the Concert Inquiry Commission to determine why the concert had not sold enough tickets (“UC to Examine Wyclef Failure,” news, Nov. 7).

Coincidentally, Monday was also the day I stopped by the Harvard Book Store to buy tickets to see Salman Rushdie speak at the First Parish Church that evening, only to find that the event was already sold out.

Comparing the apparent levels of demand for each figure—one of the most prominent authors of our time, versus, in a friend’s words, “a washed-up, has-been reggae star”—one might conclude that the UC simply misjudged student tastes when deciding who to invite to campus.



ADAM N. HALLOWELL ’09

November 7, 2005