Find Your Seat

When students entered the Yard last week to shop classes, they surely noticed the sea of pastel-colored chairs dotting the center of Harvard’s campus—and perhaps even stopped for a seat themselves. The 476 chairs and 82 tables, spread throughout the Yard and the Quad, represent the first initiative of a 22-member Committee on Common Spaces, which University President Drew G. Faust tasked with developing new social spaces for the Harvard community.

While the reaction of the student body has been mixed, the chairs do bring a new and welcome character to warm, sunny days in Cambridge. Combining aesthetic appeal and a welcome social atmosphere, they are a positive first step in the worthy effort of creating new social spaces. Daily student artistic performances at lunch, alongside innovative outdoor food vendors, also add a unique and creative touch to an otherwise average stroll through the Yard.

While only a temporary project—with plans to remove the chairs at the end of October—they are meanwhile a truly a terrific addition to Harvard Yard. Simple and tasteful, they provide an easy way to enjoy nice fall weather with fellow students. Furthermore, a scattering of chairs throughout the Yard is very conducive to furthering social interaction and spontaneous conversation. Within such a high traffic area, students are bound to see familiar faces or make new acquaintances while enjoying a seat outside.

We are pleased to see the administration embracing this inventive move to address a lack of social space on campus. Instead of fixating on the idea that the chairs might not fit well with a traditional image of Harvard Yard, administrators took somewhat of a risk and found an unconventional and elegant manner to give students a brand new way to congregate. The new food vendors and artistic performances are, similarly, original and unexpected initiatives that represent a new and welcome enthusiasm for experimentation.

This initiative could be a great complement to future and more permanent ideas for adding social space, and the administration should not hesitate to use the same risk-taking spirit in their future efforts to address this issue. To quote Henry David Thoreau, a Harvard graduate of 1837 who lived in the Yard himself, “The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” We are excited to see what this committee will unveil next.