Let Them Stay

Though a January without College programming certainly dealt a blow to our vision of calendar reform, we hope that, going forward, the College makes strides to increase the opportunities available to students. The financial recession may have made January coursework too expensive for the College, but a number of less costly initiatives can help students pursue meaningful extracurricular, athletic, academic, or career-related activities during these few weeks.

On a most basic level, the new committee established by Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds to determine housing eligibility should use the broadest possible guidelines to maximize the number of students who can remain on campus. For students who wish to work for the Institute of Politics, rehearse with their dance troupe, or work at a Boston-based company, housing is a fundamental need. Asking these students to find temporary housing elsewhere because their activities are not explicitly tied to the College would be unreasonable—not only because it disproportionately affects students with fewer financial resources, but also because it runs counter to the original aim of the “January Experience.”

Unfortunately, in Dean Hammonds’s most recent letter to students, she writes that the “threshold for approval to return to campus in January 2010 will be high” due to the reduced housing staff and limited dining space. We certainly understand that financial and logistical constraints will play a role in how these rules are crafted, but we hope that the College will explore other cost-saving measures in the interests of maximizing students’ opportunities. For example, if food costs are a constraint, perhaps the College can offer a housing-only option with no meal plan to those students engaged in off-campus activities. Ultimately, January was intended to provide students a time and space to pursue non-academic or non-traditional interests. If the College is too financially strapped to actually provide coursework for such pursuits, the least it can do is to provide a space for student groups and other institutions to create such programming.

Moreover, the College can also help to expand student options by advising undergrads on various January opportunities, both within the U.S. and abroad. A well-structured advising program—replete with information about international experiences, internships, coursework, research, and travel funding—would be a very effective way to facilitate valuable experiences for students. For such a program to be effective, however, the College must work quickly to find and publicize these opportunities to students, who are no doubt anxious about where they will be in January 2010.

Beyond January 2010, however, the College should re-evaluate the January period. Dean Hammonds has promised to use this coming year’s experience “to inform our decisions about how best to view this period in future years.” We hope this promise holds true. In future years, when financial constraints are no longer so prohibitive, the administration should fulfill its original goal—of providing a period of structured programming in which students have the option and opportunity to pursue interesting and unconventional interests on campus.