A Reputation to Uphold

Yale has finally trumped Harvard—albeit, in an area of dubious merit.

The Eli administration has finally proven that they can be even more overbearing and paranoid about drinking and parties than even the sternest Crimson authority figure. But to many, myself included, Yale’s announcements—tailgates now have to end by the start of the third quarter, drinking games and U-Haul dancing are strictly forbidden, and any student caught actually having fun will be expelled—came as little surprise. After all, Yale has been trying since its birth (the unfortunately recent year of 1701) to outdo Harvard. It has failed repeatedly in the most important fields, those of academic prestige, athletic excellence, and the ability to attract Natalie Portman ’03. But now, at long last, Yale has laid claim to one of the strongholds of Harvard’s power, the ability to regulate and control the social lives of its students.

I recently found myself wondering why Harvard (and now Yale) has cracked down so hard on the drinking and revelry that really only has one occasion, The Game, to rear its beautiful and intoxicated head. Do these elite schools really think their traditions of privilege and culture are above such messy and pedestrian things as drinking? Is there some strange compound in our blue blood that reacts with alcohol to create disastrous effects?

Surely there had to be some reason, some rationale. Surely the deans and administrators of Harvard and Yale have been to, or at least heard of, tailgates and parties at Michigan or Florida State where, despite the apparent chaos, people are generally alive at the end and, yes, even having fun in the meantime. Why crack down with such brutality on Harvard tailgates when they are so innocuous next to their counterparts at other schools?

And yet, here we are at a junction where it is practically impossible to drink a beer without glancing in the direction of a bored and annoyed police presence. Why is it like this? Because Harvard knows that any Harvard news is national news, and no one likes bad press. Twenty cases of alcohol poisoning could go unreported at Wichita Community Tech, but if a Harvard student pisses on a fence in a back corner of a tailgate, you can be sure it’s on the front page of every newspaper in the land.

There is some validity to Harvard’s concerns. Whether it is a blessing or a curse, Harvard has a certain mystique. Case in point: on front page of Wednesday’s CNN.com is an article about President Summers facing criticism for comments on Dean Kirby—faculty coffee table gossiping as front page national news. Or perhaps you remember a New York Times story from March of this year about how Harvard was switching to generic cereal brands. Because of this media attention, Harvard has a vested interest in making sure that even the most minor negative incident is avoided. If Harvard were as careless or carefree as other schools have been in the past, it would undoubtedly be subjected to a blistering barrage of scrutiny and criticism that I imagine President Summers has had enough of for several years already.

Nevertheless, Harvard has another component of its reputation to worry about that it has largely been ignoring—its standing with its own students. It has been my experience that Harvard’s unreasonable restrictions on revelry create dissatisfaction. When someone asks how we like Harvard, it’s very easy to say, “It’s challenging and I’ve met a ton of interesting people,” but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to say with a straight face that the social life is appreciably better than a North Korean prison. We see an almost daily hate-fest about final clubs, but maybe if Houses were allowed to throw parties that lasted past 2 a.m. or have those parties without filing registration forms days in advance, the clubs wouldn’t seem so appealing. The fact of the matter is that many students leave school happy to have the Harvard name to slap on job résumés but look back with mixed feelings on their social experiences.

Harvard’s responsibility should be, first and foremost, to the students paying money to attend. It should be our opinions that Harvard cares about. Even from a strictly business standpoint, fostering good feelings with its graduates can only help Harvard, since we conceivably will be the ones adding to the record endowment years down the road. I’ve already heard more than a few people say they will never give one dime to Harvard after they leave because of these overreactions.

Hand-wringing and reactionary maneuvers are not the solution to college drinking. If Harvard wants to maintain the reputation it has had for three and a half centuries, it needs to cultivate love of alma mater in its students, not pander to the whims of media outlets and cave to the fears of alarmists.

Let’s leave that kind of nonsense to Yale.



Andrew Kreicher ’06 is a biology concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.