Boggling Survey Not a Prank

A College initiative to survey students’ experiences of Harvard’s mental health services has left many undergraduates scratching their heads.

Students received an e-mail Thursday evening titled, “Another way to top the Ivies!” encouraging them to participate in a well-being survey, which is being carried out jointly with Cornell, MIT, the University of Rochester, Princeton, and Columbia.

The message was signed by Dean of Harvard College Benedict H. Gross ’71 and Director of the Department of Behavioral Health and Academic Counseling Paul J. Barreira, who is administering the survey at Harvard.

But the source e-mail address raised some students’ suspicions.

“It came from a Cornell address,” said Geoffrey Peterson ’07, a subscriber to Currier Wire where a debate raged about the memo’s authenticity.

“They just didn’t know why an e-mail from high up in the administration came from Cornell,” he said of skeptical students.

He added that he had contacted Barreira, who assured him that the initiative was real.

“I think the e-mail confusion will cause a lower participation rate,” said Susan I. Putnins ’08, although she said she had completed the survey herself.

Barreira said on Friday afternoon that he had received about 40 messages from students asking if his e-mail was a prank pulled the night before the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, door-dropped its latest issue.

“It’s not a prank!” Barreira said.

Cornell is providing the computer facilities and technical know-how for the project, he said.

The e-mail was forwarded to Gross’ office to send to all undergraduates, according to Barreira, who added that he expected the original message to list his Harvard address, “not some foreign country like Cornell.”

Another e-mail—sent from a University Health Services this time—followed on Friday afternoon.

“This is indeed an official survey,” it read, “not a prank.”

The survey’s results will provide insight into the state of mental health services across the six colleges and how Harvard compares, Barreira said.

The e-mail encouraged inter-House competition to raise the participation rate.

All residents of the House or Yard with the highest participation rate will receive free movie tickets, and every 35th student to complete the survey will win a Nalgene.

“If we got 70 percent participation, I‘d being doing cartwheels down Linden Street. Clothed,” Barreira said. “But I’d be doing them.”

“If we got half of the student body [answering the survey], I’d be ecstatic,” he added.

—Staff writer John R. Macartney can be reached at jmacartn@fas.harvard.