So, What's a Class Marshal?

Today, the senior class will begin electing the senior Class Marshals. If you happen to use a little something called Facebook, you’ve probably received about a dozen or so invitations to vote for various senior leaders, who all boast similar platforms of making events for the graduating class and making this, if you are a senior in the Class of 2016, the best! year! yet! The question remains however, what exactly is a senior class marshal? Why is the position so coveted? Why should we care? Luckily, Flyby has done some research into the topic and has you covered:

According to the Harvard Alumni website, eight class marshals are elected every year. These marshals include the First and Second Marshals, who earn the most votes respectively and serve as essentially "class president" and "vice president," as well as six Program Marshals. The group's goal, along with the rest of the Senior Class Committee, is to "bring the Class together as a whole, connecting members of the Class of 2016 to each other and Harvard College by modeling and facilitating communication, participation, volunteerism, and giving among classmates." Their tasks among other things include organizing senior year events, such as all of the senior week activities, Class Day, the senior soiree, and class reunions (which if choosing a class marshal applies to you, probably makes you feel old). Basically, it appears that class marshals are responsible for a lot of the fun senior-specific events. It’s a little bit like what the Crimson Key is for freshmen, except also not.

Class marshals appear to have a lot of influence over the series of fun events for seniors' last moments here as well as post-grad get-togethers, so if you’re graduating this year, vote today for the First and Second Class Marshals!

P.S. Oh yeah, last year’s First Class Marshal was Sietse K. Goffard '15, and there is currently a small movement on Facebook to re-elect him again, because “nothing broke last time.”