The Capital Campaign to Nowhere

Social space at Harvard is a real problem. But the Undergraduate Council’s potential purchase of 45 Mt. Auburn Street is an even bigger one. While admirably motivated, the plan is not a feasible solution and should be abandoned immediately. We commend the UC for working to solve the important issue of social space on campus, but its fixation on purchasing this particular property is unwise.

The UC has apparently failed to take into account the numerous flaws in its acquisition plan, which undermine the entire endeavor. This past Tuesday, less than three weeks before the end of exams, all Harvard undergraduates received “personal” e-mails soliciting their services as paid fundraisers for the capital campaign the UC will launch over the summer to raise approximately $6 million in no fewer than 16 months. Given the scope of the project and the current economic climate, this lofty goal seems highly unrealistic. However, anything shy of this target will likely be insufficient to complete the expensive purchase. Exactly how much is needed is still unknown, as the sale price for the building has yet to be determined, even though one would have hoped that an elementary sense of prudence would have kept the UC from launching this initiative without finalizing such a crucial detail. But whatever the final price turns out to be—some estimates predict as much as $4 million—the fundraising required to generate it will far exceed reasonable expectations.

The UC asserts that its capital campaign is open-ended and will produce valuable funds even if the purchase of 45 Mt. Auburn never materializes. But this logic fails to consider that, while collecting $6 million from recession-pinched alums for the clear goal of a building purchase is difficult enough, trying to raise the same amount with only a vague appeal to “social space” would be flatly impossible.

And regardless of whether it has the fundraising capabilities to meet its impossibly high targets, the UC may not even be able to receive donations given its legal status. As of now, it has received a $4,000 donation that it can only accept either via a “gift account” or “pledge account” created in conjunction with the university, since the UC has yet to earn full 501(c)(3) status.

Should the gods grant the UC the money (and the legal status) required to purchase 45 Mt. Auburn, it still would not be out of the woods. The price of the building itself is nowhere near the end of the expenses this initiative would incur. In the unlikely event that the building can be purchased, there will still be substantial renovation costs to meet. Architects have estimated that the total costs for these upgrades would be approximately $500,000, yet another large sum the UC must feel capable of paying. On top of everything else, there has even been talk of adding additional floors to the building, which makes the entire project appear like a bit of a farce.

Given what the UC stands to pay and what it stands to gain, it seems safe to say that purchasing 45 Mt. Auburn may not be the best idea possible. Current plans seem to call for the UC to shell out millions of dollars for a partial share in a decaying building. Under the current proposal, the building’s top two floors would remain inaccessible to the UC, leaving only the ground floor and basement, which requires heavy renovations to be usable. Even if the project did succeed, the potential improvements to student life to be derived from such a small space would not be significant enough to justify the incredible obstacles the UC must overcome. Especially given the restrictions that would be imposed on the UC’s use of the building—and the plans to use part of it as UC offices—45 Mt. Auburn is not at all the space students envision when they imagine the student center Harvard needs. Another coffee shop and some additional rooms available for rent are nowhere near the top of anyone’s priorities at the moment, and the UC should be no exception.

It is also particularly troubling that, as per the seller’s stipulations, a large portion of the building would have to be set aside for “progressive social organizations,” a term that, while nebulous, connotes a certain ideological leaning the UC has no business promoting with its real estate. The UC is a body intended to represent Harvard’s entire undergraduate population, and no social space it attempts to create should ever alienate those students whose political views may not necessarily be classified as “progressive.”

But these are distant concerns given the more immediate problems associated with the purchase. The UC’s misguided attempt to buy 45 Mt. Auburn is likely to fail, and such a failure would diminish the UC’s already scant credibility and distract it from important items on its agenda, such as responding to the massive budget cuts sweeping the university.

Before a recipe for disaster becomes a very real problem, the UC should reconsider its decision to embark on a capital campaign to nowhere.