The Truth About HoCos

Anyone who has ever been to the Lowell House Bacchanalia knows there is a lot of bang—and it is done for little buck. Over two years of creating and running the Bacchanalia, Lowell’s spring formal, I have seen firsthand the power of the College’s House Committees (HoCos) to achieve great results on a limited budget, as well as the tremendous potential for broader success under less-restricted means. Last weekend’s HoCo events in Adams House and Currier House provide ample evidence that HoCos can have tremendous impact on students’ social lives, even far beyond the walls of their own Houses. House life is the single experience shared by all Harvard students, and HoCos are positioned to have the largest social impact per dollar spent.

The Bacchanalia is a fitting case study for why HoCos are uniquely positioned to throw successful House-wide and College-wide events. We had a team of incredibly dedicated HoCo members, and interested members of the House community, who came together bringing incredible expertise that let us produce many of the biggest draws of the event in house. Most members of the Committee contributed design, text, or pictures to an extensive and beautiful website. A team built a nine-foot Trojan horse for only a few hundred dollars’ worth of lumber and paint. The former owner of a cake-baking company (and a Lowell resident) approached HoCo about building a massive cake in the shape of the House. Hours of work from individual Lowellians saved thousands of dollars. The treasurer haggled with vendors and worked with other HoCos to get group discounts that slashed thousands of dollars from our costs on lighting and tents. None of these touches tapped into an endowment—all were donations of time, labor, and love by an engaged community and its volunteer HoCo.

The experience of the Bacchanalia may sound exceptional, but it’s the strength of HoCo’s position within the House and College community that makes the exceptional possible. HoCos have unique advantages that other student groups, including the Undergraduate Council (UC), do not. HoCos know the communities they serve directly, and they have the ability to understand the breadth of social offerings needed to fill this College’s social scene. HoCos have the ability to inspire dozens of people to help with and care about an effort because they live with those who have an affiliation with, membership in, and loyalty to a community. These Housemates see the HoCo’s daily hard work and volunteer to help in return. And, HoCos are helped by institutional memory in the form of influential House administrators, superintendents, masters, and tutors—a fortunate circumstance that all but a handful of student groups don’t have. This is exactly what makes HoCos both efficient and successful each year.

Given these strengths, HoCos consistently ask what we can do on both a campus-wide and House-wide scale, only to run up against the lack of substantial funding. What could the same creative talents that plan each House’s events do if they were less financially constrained? Last weekend’s masquerading mobs at Currier’s Heaven and Hell showed that there is demand for free, campus-wide events, so much so that their attendance had to be capped midway through the event! Yet few other HoCos can satisfy their obligations to their House community, such as themed events, Stein clubs, and House formals, and still have the resources it takes to throw a massive campus-wide event.

It is hard to over-stress that the essential ingredients to the Lowell HoCo’s success have not been trusts or alumni, but hardworking folks and support from the Lowell House administration. A few HoCos may be funded by House trusts, but—great though it would be for Lowell—we are unfortunately not amongst them. Last year’s Bacchanalia cost HoCo, net of ticket sales, a touch over $1,000, which was covered by UC grants that also funded Lowell’s carnival, Oscar night, Stein clubs, gym equipment purchases, freshman welcome event, and many other House activities.

Larger grants for HoCo funding from the UC, in the neighborhood of $7,000 per House per year, have made it possible for HoCos to do a great deal more than before. But there is still a lot of untapped HoCo energy that could throw even more events if more funding was available. And there are dollars funding other campus life projects that could be better spent on HoCos. For as much as we support the end missions of the UC’s Campus Life Committee and the Harvard Concert Commission, it’s hard not to ask what HoCos could have done with the $30,000 allocation to the Jim Breuer concert last fall. Each semester, HoCo chairs and treasurers take their fight to the UC for allocations. This fight should not have to be waged anew each year.

The long-term solution lies in the hands of the College. Administrators can make good on their announced commitment to student social life. President A. Lawrence Lowell’s conception of the Residential House system—and the experience of 4,800 upperclassmen each year—point the way. HoCos invigorate and reinvigorate the social scene within the College, but only if they have sufficient means to do so.



Neil K. Mehta ’06 is an applied mathematics concentrator in Lowell House. He is co-chair of the Lowell House Committee.