Student Groups Lose Prized Items in Move to Hilles

The mayhem of student move in—when scores climb over towers of boxes in storage rooms across campus—may be over. But for groups moving in to their newly minted offices in the Quad, it’s just begun.

When the Asian American Association (AAA) and the Korean Drum Troupe (KDT) entered their relocated offices in Hilles this fall, some of their items were damaged or missing.

According to KDT Co-President Kyungwon “Woni” Hong ’07, KDT is missing six drums and an instrument stand. A seventh drum is damaged beyond repair.

“The estimated cost for new drums will be $200 each, and for now, we don’t have enough [in our] budgets,” Hong said. “The more serious problem is that we can’t practice properly for a while, [although] new members are joining.”

The missing items were originally stored with items belonging to the AAA and moved to Hilles together.

“From now on, we will store our drums in [the] Korean Association’s office in Hilles,” Hong said.

Co-President of AAA Mei Yi Pen ’07 said that in addition to the missing drums, they found a box “completely unrelated [to AAA]” in their office.

The box, containing frames and other belongings, is most likely the property of the Kuumba Singers, another student group allocated space in Hilles.

Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II, an instrumental figure in the large-scale uproot to Hilles, said that no other groups reported items missing as a result of the cross-campus move.

The student groups did not have any involvement with the transportation of their items.

“Nothing was in our control,” said Harvard-Radcliffe RAZA treasurer Eloy Villanueva ’08, whose group’s items all arrived safely. “We put our stuff in boxes and left it [labeled] in the office.”

According to Pen, McLoughlin informed her that the moving company had photographed and catalogued all of the items and essentially everything was in Hilles.

Similar to other student groups with meeting space in Hilles, the AAA shares office space with two other organizations: the Harvard Vietnamese Association and the Taiwanese Cultural Society.

All groups will meet later this week to check their inventory, according to Pen.

On the coattails of displeasure from students about how student life is being negatively impacted—both by the impending close of the Malkin Athletic Center in the spring and the forthcoming restrictions on alcohol during the Harvard-Yale Tailgate—many student group leaders are happy about the move.

Although the distance poses an obstacle for a majority of undergraduates, the new spaces are offering students large meeting spaces, a luxury many did not have in previous years.

Villanueva said that although not all leaders appreciate the distance, they have more space to “actually have people in there to have meetings.”