Students Brave Winter Chill to Claim Poster Space in the Yard

In the age of Facebook e-vites and mass email lists, many campus clubs still believe in the old-fashioned method of recruitment: asking members to brave early mornings and brisk temperatures to compete for a prominent spot atop campus bulletin boards and kiosks.

A comp poster rests on the ground by the Lamont poster kiosk. Student group members wake up early to advertise their clubs during specified times on Mondays and Thursdays. By Savannah I. Whaley

Dressed in their thickest winter coats with their breath visible in the morning air, a crowd of students eagerly gather in the Yard every Monday and Thursday morning as they wait for Facilities Maintenance Operations to clear the boards of last week's posters.

“I’m not allowed to take down these posters, which is kind of of annoying because I’m here at the right time and there’s no one here to take them down for me,” said Sammy N. Mehra '17 as he waited for the FMO to clear the previous wave of posters. “I’m also not allowed to poster over people. Which makes getting here early worthwhile.”

According to the Office of Student Life, recognized student organizations may post on Yard bulletin boards and kiosks on a first-come, first-serve basis. Competition is often fierce for prime real estate, with many students already present before FMO arrives around 8:00 a.m.

“I want to get the best spot. I want to put up a whole bunch of them so, you know, it catches the eye,” said Mehra, who was ready in the yard with his posters at 7:00 a.m.

Of course, not all mornings have students lined up to put up their posters. Thursday’s below freezing temperatures may have dissuaded some from leaving the warmth of their rooms.

“My past postering experience has been that there is a lot of competition to get the best spots,” Juliet Kim ’18 said, as she and a fellow Quincy Pottery Studio member Jeff A. Naftaly ’18 member put up posters near Harvard Hall. “I recruited these guys to come with me really early and turns out we didn’t have to.”

Still, an hour after FMO took down last week’s posters, the newly emptied boards were once again plastered with a collage of posters of varying colors and sizes.

“I actually graduated in 2014, but I’m still involved in the Harvard ballroom team, and therefore I get suckered into postering, you know, as one does.” Zoe C. DeStories ’14 said after taping up a poster. “I’ve been doing it long enough that I know that if you do not get here at 7:50, you will not get poster space.”

–Staff Writer Aafreen Azmi can be reached at aafreenazmi@thecrimson.com.

–Staff Writer Derek G. Xiao can be reached at derek.xiao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekgxiao.