Students Apply Again for Hilles Space

The Student Organization Center at Hilles (SOCH) boasts student offices, collaborative zones and a state-of-the-art coffee bar. But there is one thing missing: students.

“Every time I’ve been there, the place is all but empty,” Harvard Democrats Communications Director Garrett D. Nelson ’09 wrote in an e-mail.

Despite the barren hallways, Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II said that he was “incredibly happy” with the success of SOCH’s first semester.

“I have enjoyed going up to the SOCH and seeing students working in their offices, using the common spaces, enjoying the Penthouse Coffee Bar, hosting conferences, playing pool,” McLoughlin wrote in an e-mail. “That activity level was something that we could have never realized in the few scattered basement offices of the Yard.”

But McLoughlin conceded that it will take a long time before SOCH (pronounced variously as “soak” and “soatch”) becomes the student hub it was designed to be.

“I’m willing to give the SOCH three to four years to reach its potential,” he wrote.

In the meantime, SOCH administrators have embarked on a campaign to woo students to the center by distributing coupons for free coffee at SOCH’s Penthouse Coffee Bar to student mailboxes before intersession, and hosting acoustic nights and student-group-sponsored movie nights for the late-night crowd.

But some students say that the problem with Hilles has more to do with its location than with lack of student events being held there.

“People hear ‘the Quad’ and they think it’s in Outer Siberia—they just don’t want to go there,” said Harvard Republican Club President Jeffrey Kwong ’09.

In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Nelson said that the SOCH’s distance from the Yard also affected the Dems’ willingness to use it.

“We, unfortunately, hardly ever use Hilles. The reason, of course, is the fear that moving most of our events to the Quad would cannibalize participation from freshmen and River upperclassmen.”

McLoughlin wrote that overcoming the mental obstacle of the trip to the

Quad would be largely up to students themselves.

“I have to admit that I find it puzzling as to why students never complain about the distance to the Quad when there is a weekend party, but they do on a Tuesday night,” McLoughlin said.

“In the end, the students who want to use the SOCH and understand the benefits it has to offer their student organization will walk the ten minutes from the Yard for it.”

Applications to reserve space in Hilles for next year are due Feb. 23.

McLoughlin said he hoped the installation of Global Positioning System on the shuttles, to be completed by May, would allow students to track the shuttle’s progress and minimize wait time.

—Staff writer Elaine Chen can be reached at chen23@fas.harvard.edu.