UC Representatives Note Marked Improvement in University Communications

The morning after the Boston Marathon bombings, Undergraduate Council representative Brett M. Biebelberg ’16 began to draft legislation firmly criticizing what he termed the University’s “flop” in communicating with students in the hours after the deadly attacks.

But the legislation he ultimately presented at the UC general meeting on Sunday night took a starkly different tone. The more tempered final product reflected what he and others believe was a marked improvement in Harvard’s emergency communication with students during a nearly 24-hour period that began with a terrifying Thursday night and stretched into an anxiety-ridden Friday. As police chased the bombing suspects late Thursday night and then searched for the second suspect during a lockdown that paralyzed the greater Boston area on Friday, students received 14 MessageMe emergency alerts and a series of emails from administrators.

Biebelberg’s legislation, which passed unanimously, included clauses requesting that UC members be allowed to join administrators in reflecting on the College’s response to last week’s events and asking administrators responsible for MessageMe emergency alerts to work with students to review the system’s effectiveness.

Biebelberg, who represents Crimson Yard and serves on the Harvard Campus Safety Committee, said in an interview after the meeting that overall, he and his peers were happy with the way the University communicated with students during the manhunt on Thursday and Friday. He said the few complaints he heard came from students listening to the Boston Police scanner—complaints he discredited on the grounds that Harvard’s emergency alert system is not meant to “ease the fears” of people misinterpreting the radio traffic.

Still, he conceded that the University’s communications were absolutely not perfect and there was room for improvement.

“We will work on how the working of the messages can be improved and consider in what situations and timeframes it is best to disseminate appropriate information,” Biebelberg said.

UC President Tara Raghuveer ’14 and UC Vice President Jen Q. Y. Zhu ’14 indicated at Sunday’s UC meeting that they will discuss the MessageMe system with Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds at an upcoming meeting Wednesday.

Raghuveer said she was generally pleased by how the community had responded in a time of crisis.

“We found our Harvard community stronger than we’ve ever seen it,” Raghuveer said. “I think the word ‘community’ at Harvard gets thrown around a lot, and there isn’t really a solid definition for that, but I think what we saw in the past week was the incredible amount of caring that Harvard students have for one another.”

Also included in the legislation was the UC’s expression of solace for those affected by the tragic events, which included a clause showing solidarity with “our peers at the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology.” MIT Police Officer Sean A. Collier was shot and killed in the confrontation with the bombing suspects late Thursday night.

A second piece of legislation concerning last week’s events was also adopted by unanimous consent at Sunday’s meeting. “The Harvard University Police Department Appreciation Act” expresses the UC’s “profound appreciation” for all HUPD, Securitas, and Boston police officers.

Currier House Representative Sietse K. Goffard ’15, who co-sponsored the legislation with six other representatives, said that it was important that the Council recognize the heroism and the dedication of HUPD.

“As you all know, they put themselves on the line every single day of the year,” said Goffard. “But this past week especially they were there for us, working extra hours, making sure that we all feel comfortable.”

The legislation declares April 24 through 26 HUPD Appreciation Week and calls upon individual House Committees to work in conjunction with their House UC representatives to organize acts of appreciation for security officers.

The legislation also resolves that the UC will set up a “Thank You Wall” to allow students to write notes of gratitude to HUPD officers and Harvard security personnel in a public space on campus. In addition, it calls on the UC to compile photos of students holding up handwritten thank-you messages on whiteboards and to film brief videos featuring UC or general student body members expressing their thanks.

—Staff writer Steven S. Lee can be reached at stevenlee@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @StevenSJLee.