A Horde of Mascots Welcomes New House Members

Hints of late-morning vodka and the buzz of rivalrous housing chants wafted in front of Annenberg Hall yesterday as residents of Harvard’s 12 undergraduate Houses welcomed freshmen to their newly assigned residences.

“We’re hot, we’re drunk, we’re going to the Quad!” chanted a horde of Cabot residents before a line of freshmen waiting to get inside the dining hall.

A menagerie of House mascots paraded the surrounding lawn, only adding to the morning’s competitive atmosphere.

The Mather Gorilla, who declined to give his real name, said that he had brought “some music, some fun, and some, you know, beverages” to the Housing Day festivities.

“It’s fantastic being a gorilla,” he said. “It almost makes me feel bad for the trees and the fish when you’re a gorilla, you know.”

But the other House mascots would not let the Gorilla have the last word.

The Currier Tree responded by saying, “there’s nothing you can be better than a tall oak tree. Mather’s mascot doesn’t even match their shield. They’re the, what are they, the tigers? And there’s a gorilla. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The outdoor raucousness only continued what began several hours earlier in the freshman dorms.

Waiting in line at Annenberg, Marissa A. Babin ’11—who will be living in Pforzheimer House next year—said a group of PfoHo residents had pounded on her door that morning, barged into her dorm room, and delivered her housing assignment letter.

“They came in blowing these horns and yelling,” she said. “It was crazy.”

Yesterday was the first time House residents, and not administrators, delivered residential assignment letters to freshman dorms.

Dunster House Committee Co-Chair Anna Chen ’09—whose contingent greeted freshmen with a large anthropomorphic moose—said that the outcome of the new delivery arrangement was positive on the whole.

“I think the freshmen were very surprised to have a lot of people show up at their rooms screaming and yelling, but it was a lot of fun for people to deliver letters,” she said. “I think it scared some freshman, but overall, it was a very positive response.”

Inside Annenberg, Samantha R. Reiser ’11, who had already donned her Adams House t-shirt, said that her blocking group’s assignment had been unexpected.

“We have a lot of athletes in our blocking group,” she said, “so we were thinking, because of all the myths that go around, we were definitely getting Quadded, hands down. Adams wasn’t even a question.”

Reiser said that in the excited confusion of the morning’s letter delivery, she initially couldn’t understand what the group of upperclassmen outside her door was saying.

“It’s very possible they could have been drunk,” she said.

Adams House Master John G. “Sean” Palfrey ’67 said that although he was not as unruly as his students, he had also been out early in the morning, congratulating freshmen on their admission to Adams.

For some, however, the early morning cohorts were small comfort for the news they delivered.

Amid the Annenberg ruckus, soon-to-be Currier resident Allan S. Bradley ’11 said that, while he had heard Quad housing was better than River housing, he remained a little disappointed with his lottery results.

“This is all a little overwhelming,” he said. “I’m just trying to get lunch.”

After the daytime celebration died down, University President Drew G. Faust helped welcome rising sophomores at Currier’s open house last night.

Faust said her friendship with former Currier House Master Barbara G. Rosenkrantz ’44 allowed Faust to get to know the Quad residence before any other House at Harvard.

“I think this is the only House I’ve slept in,” Faust said to a crowd of around 100 students and House administrators.

“You’re going to be playing beautiful music. You’re going to be making billions of dollars,” Faust told the rising sophomores, referring to former Currier residents Yo-Yo Ma ’76 and Bill Gates.

—Abby D. Phillip, Clifford M. Marks, and Nathan C. Strauss contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Charles J. Wells can be reached at wells2@fas.harvard.edu.