Move Housing Day

Last week, a meeting of the Committee on Undergraduate Education rekindled a longstanding student hope: that the administration would prohibit the scheduling of midterms on Housing Day.

The cause was championed strongly at the meeting by Undergraduate Council Vice President Dhruv P. Goyal ’16. Goyal and UC President Ava Nasrollahzadeh ’16 had campaigned last fall on a platform that emphasized ending Housing Day exams. In particular, Goyal reminded the committee members of the stress that faces students with the combination of both assessments and housing lottery results, while also noting that immediate change would be improbable, if not impossible, given the disarray caused by three snow days.

Goyal is right to criticize the inconvenience of the current system. Traditionally held on the last Thursday before spring break, Housing Day coincides with a high tide of papers and midterms, especially as some professors attempt to squeeze in one extra assignment before the week off. As a result, students must navigate between studying and engaging with their House communities.

It is shortsighted to dismiss the push to reschedule midterms by arguing that academics come first. The sort of community fostered by Housing Day is a vital component of any Harvard education. While the festivities can occasionally bear more than a passing resemblance to a college-wide bacchanalia, they are also a unique opportunity to build cohesion within each House—a goal that the Office of Admissions loves to advertise.

Certainly, record-breaking snowfalls over the past few weeks have complicated plans to reconfigure Housing Day for this semester. It is impractical to ask professors to throw out schedules that they have already erased and rewritten; their job here is not to repeatedly revise and create new iterations of course schedules. Pushing to abolish midterms on the Thursday before Spring Break this year would be an unwise and disrespectful decision.

However, this does not mean that status quo is the only remaining option; the administration should seriously consider other alternatives that would enable a meaningful Housing Day for all students. Instead of moving house activities to Friday, which Goyal has suggested, the optimal policy would be to reschedule the celebration for a nearby Saturday, when there is no conflict between academic and communal commitments. Further, as this weekend option would not inconvenience professors, there are fewer logistical barriers preventing the administration from implementing such a plan as early as this year.

If placing Housing Day on a Saturday in March would cause problems, then the administration should consider moving the celebration either earlier or later in the calendar. The original date of Housing Day was chosen so as not to interfere with the day when freshmen declared their concentrations; given that first-years no longer have this responsibility during the second semester, the placement of Housing Day in March has now lost its earlier purpose.

The conflict between missing midterms and missing out is not only unfair but also unnecessary. Starting this year, the administration should pledge to ensuring that students are not forced to choose between good grades and community spirit.