Class of 2012 Elects Class Marshals

Undergraduate Council Vice President Bonnie Cao ’12 will serve as First Class Marshal, the Harvard Alumni Association announced Monday evening.

Cao, a Pforzheimer House resident and Government concentrator, will be joined by Lange P. Luntao ’12 of Kirkland House as Second Class Marshal.

Cao and Luntao are charged with working with the rest of the Senior Class Committee to represent the Class of 2012 in the HAA, plan Senior Week activities, and select the Class Day speaker.

For much of this year, the Marshals will be charged with planing and running events for the senior class.

Several of the newly-minted Marshals expressed the desire to find activities that would help foster unity among the members of the senior class.

Cao said she would like to act soon to plan first-semester events to jumpstart the year.

Marshal Athena Louise M. Lao ’12 of Cabot House said she hopes to institute service programs for the Class of 2012 as part of senior-year activities.

“I’d love to see a balance between the socially just and the socially crunk,” she said.

Luntao said he wants to suggest a variation of the Harvard Thinks Big program begun by Peter D. Davis ’12 specifically for the class of 2012, adding, “I want to be Pete Davis.”

“I don’t want to give away any of the surprises,” Luntao said.

Adams resident and Class Marshal Sanjay P. Misra ’12 also plans to secure a sponsorship from fast-food giant Taco Bell for the Class of 2012, citing the goal as a campaign point on which he ran.

Class Marshal Annie E. DeAngelo ’12 of Pforzheimer House said she’d also like to see more events that would bring seniors outdoors, into the Cambridge spring.

Additionally, Class Marshals are charged with the task of identifying the next Class Day speaker. Cao said her dream speaker would be either Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, while DeAngelo said that Andy Samberg and the creators of South Park—Trey Parker and Matt Stone—were among the suggestions she had received. Misra proposed Ellen DeGeneres, while Lao said her dream speaker would be Beyoncé Knowles.

Many of the Marshals said that a desire to give back to the community—both to their class and to the University at large—drove their decisions to apply to be a Class Marshal.

Misra said that being a Class Marshal was a way to stay connected to the people he admired.

“Every day you meet someone new who’s done amazing things,” he said. “You learn so much from them.”

DeAngelo said she has wanted to be a Class Marshal since her freshman year. “I love tradition, and I love the fact that Class Marshals have been around for a long time,” she said.

The Class Marshals were picked from a group of 63 seniors, which was narrowed down to a field of 16 before the final eight were chosen.

Nearly 1,000 seniors participated in the final round of voting, according to an email from HAA coordinator for student outreach Clint Ficula, and about a half an hour before polls closed, he said that only two votes separated the candidates for first and second Class Marshal.

Rounding out the list of class marshals are Oluwadamilola “Dammy” Akinfenwa ’12 of Cabot House, Matthew J. DaSilva ’12 of Adams House, and Barthalomew “B.A.” Sillah ’12 of Eliot House.

—Staff writer Benjamin M. Scuderi can be reached at bscuderi@college.harvard.edu.