The People’s Party

April is the cruelest month. In assigning next year’s housing, House lotteries will inevitably find ways to satisfy their seniors, placate their juniors, and slight their sophomores. Among the rooms they will assign are veritable MTV cribs of the residential houses: the College’s party suites.

Nearly every house has one. Some have several. These are the great social spaces of Harvard, with their huge common-rooms and accompanying perks, such as built-in bars and kegerators. Pforzheimer House has the Belltower. Currier House has the Ten-Man. Eliot House has Ground Zero. During the day, they are, ideally, informal hangout spaces for other house residents. By night, they host parties that have drawn sweaty undergrads from all over campus.

Traditionally, lotteries distribute the party suites in a random fashion. But this had led to less-than-satisfactory arrangements. We can all think of a party suite we know where the residents keep largely to themselves. When this happens, everyone loses: The College has fewer parties, and the houses have fewer focal points.

The solution is to derandomize, and then democratize, the distribution of party suites. House residents should be able to elect their peers to live in party suites. This would have two chief advantages. First, it would ensure a more reliable supply of parties. If students want parties, they are likely to elect those who are likely to throw them. Second, it would firmly center social life on the House. Electing students to party suites would necessarily reward those most gregarious within the Houses. Voting would also give other residents more incentive to participate in House life.

Some might fear that House elections will become a popularity contest. But this is a good thing. The house benefits far more from having sociable (read: popular) people living in party suites than it does from having decent, quiet people in them. The House’s icons are the loci upon whom a vibrant House life can be built. And they tend to cluster in rooming groups that are ideal for these suites. If students think about their own Houses, they can identify a group of roommates that is ideally suited to live in a party suite, and most of the House could agree on who this group is.

As it stands now, an implicit duty to throw open parties comes with living in a party suite. With derandomized placement in party suites, this duty would become all but explicit. This poses a question of fairness, since rooming groups that are particularly wealthy would have an advantage in throwing parties (and also in obtaining the rooms in the first place, since they could make their wealth a focal point of their “campaign” for a suite). To make the process fair, the Undergraduate Council (UC) must expand its already successful party fund to ensure that all party suites, regardless of the personal wealth of their residents, can execute out their bacchanalian duties. Furthermore, the UC should prioritize funding for “democratically elected” party suites over lotteried rooms. (We expect that the party fund will grow anyway next year due to the influx of funds previously earmarked for campus-wide social activities.)

The elections for party suites can be held in several different ways, for example, in the form of a live caucus or e-mail ballots. Perhaps these elections could even include some campaigning. The form is flexible. We urge House committees, housemasters, and House tutors to consider this simple innovation as a way to increase social space within a House—not to mention encourage a few more on-campus parties.