<p>Last month, Harvard freshmen learned their House assignments for the next three years. A quarter of them were assigned to the Quad, and most took the news hard. The Quad is nearly a mile from the Yard and connected by a shuttle service. Cellular service is spotty, adding to a common perception of isolation and being "exiled." In addition to having their own dedicated services and facilities, Quad residents find that a strong sense of community helps to make Quad life special. Quad residents have been holding events over the past month to convince their new fellow residents that the Quad will be OK.</p>
<p>Last week, announced budget cuts included the closure of the library at the Quad - unfortunate, but understandable. Quad residents would just have to take the shuttle to Lamont Library on the Yard. Over the weekend, the Deans of the College and of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced proposed additional cuts that would restrict late-night shuttle services on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, with service on Sunday through Wednesday nights continuing only until 1:30 a.m., versus 3:50 a.m. at present. Students will not discontinue studying late at night - now, with their own Library closed, they'll just walk - through an area with poor cell service, low lighting, and no University Police patrols.</p>
<p>No library of their own, and now no way to get back and forth to the others? And this for students who have just begun to get over the sense that they've been disenfranchised by being sent to the Quad? Some of the Quad students feel that they're being singled out for the brunt of the hit since they comprise only 25% of the student body and therefore won't generate as much in the way of protest as the other 75% would. The fact that the cutbacks were announced on the weekend - one of the last weekends of the year - only adds to that suspicion.</p>
<p>The students had an Open Forum tonight with Dean of the College Evelynn Hammonds, who said that final decisions had not yet been made. Quad students are planning to voice their concerns to Dean Hammonds and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith. If you'd like to join them, Dean Hammonds can be reached at: 617-495-1560; evelynn<em><a href="mailto:hammonds@harvard.edu">hammonds@harvard.edu</a>. Dean Smith can be reached at 617-495-1566;
mike</em><a href="mailto:smith@harvard.edu">smith@harvard.edu</a>.</p>
<p>I think all students ought to make their voices heard, not just those living in the Quad. All parents should do so as well. There have been several muggings along the way to the Quad in recent weeks. Safety is an issue that should be paramount.</p>
<p>I won’t have a child at Harvard after this June (and he was not in the Quad) but I’ve written to Deans Smith and Hammond to express my concern about the reduction in shuttle service to the Quad. It is really a safety issue. Even on well-lit Mass Ave, one ought not to walk alone late at night.</p>
<p>In the fall of my senior year, I got into the habit of studying at the Radcliffe library.
Not just to eye the cheese, although I admit that I liked to look. The place was quiet,
nobody knew me, and the reserve books were less in demand. The day before one of
my history hour exams, I still hadn’t gotten around to reading first book on the list, an
endemic Harvard disease, I ambled over to the reserve desk to get one of the tomes
that would bail me out on the morrow. There were two girls working there. One a tall
tennis-anyone type, the other a bespectacled mouse type. I opted for Minnie Four-
Eyes.</p>
<p>“Do you have The Waning of the Middle Ages?”</p>
<p>She shot a glance up at me.</p>
<p>“Do you have your own library?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Listen, Harvard is allowed to use the Radcliffe library.”</p>
<p>“I’m not talking legality, Preppie, I’m talking ethics. You guys have five
million books. We have a few lousy thousand.”</p>
<p>Erich Segal, of course. I realized too late that I could have used the
[quote]
html to make clear that this particular personal reminiscence wasn’t personal to me, but I thought that it was recognizable enough (which was the point) that no one was likely to be misled. For those of our generation, it’s hard not to feel a little sad that they are shuttering the place where Oliver Barrett IV and Jenny Cavalleri met. (While remembering that beefs about the stepchild quality of the Quad predate the current use of it.)</p>
<p>I don’t think I ever saw the place. I did spend time visiting my cousins in what was then North House, but that was during the brief period in my life when I was embarassed to admit how much I had loved Love Story. </p>
<p>Allan Bloom = The University of Chicago. To which I also have ties, but far too recent ever to have met him. Yale’s Bloom was Harold.</p>
<p>But that kind of mistake is apparently common among the educated. During my disciple phase, one of my Harvard cousins, then a professor at Princeton, scolded me, “The average Princeton undergraduate thinks that Harold Bloom is the main character in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Which is entirely the correct attitude towards Harold Bloom AND James Joyce’s Ulysses.”</p>
<p>Quad parents, please note - it’s not just the quad residents who need safe shuttle service. Mather/Dunster residents are also located far from the yard, and when studying late in the library, need safe transportation. The shuttle service, at least between Lamont and distant houses, is one of the last cuts that should be made.</p>
<p>Of course, it should be Harold. Neither he nor Allan are among my favorites, which is why I always mix their names up! :)</p>
<p>My H’s (male) graduate labmates confessed to crying over Oliver and Jennifer. One of them is teaching at Yale. He may have memorized the book; I have not. But I read it (and occasionally pass the laundromat that claims in its window to have featured in the movie).</p>
<p>I believe the contents of Hilles library were sent to Beijing several years ago. Why, you may ask? I believe it’s because the Harvard-Yenching library was the recipient of the Yenching University library’s contents when the latter had to close its doors.</p>
<p>Holy crap. Great link, twinmom @ posting #3. Harvard is turning into UMass Amherst !! Actually, I take that back – I think UMass has its stuff together fiscally more than Harvard from the looks of it. And I’m pretty sure they still server eggs on weekdays and keep their gymn open in the summer at UMass.</p>