Big Business

In September, 1957, when Harvard Student Agencies appeared as headquarters for and overseer of student business enterprises in the University, only 14 agencies were in operation. In its first two years, H.S.A. has collected 27 agencies under its ample wing, and the number of students employed has risen from 58 to 390, their net earnings from $13,000 to $50,000.

Additional enterprises are in the works. A report of Dustin M. Burke, an H.S.A. director, says "it is hoped that one or two new businesses may be added each year to continue this growth process." The sudden creation of H.S.A., its impressive expansion and ambitious plans have aroused criticism. Established businessmen in the Square have feared the strategic position of H.S.A. in student sales; undergraduate publications, its potential as a competitor for advertising revenue; and other student businesses, its seeming desire to absorb all undergraduate enterprises into itself.

A brainchild of John U. Monro, then Director of Financial Aid, H.S.A. was set up with three purposes in mind: to supervise established enterprises and promote new business ventures for the benefit of students in need of financial aid; to provide experience in the practical management of business affairs; and "to foster, encourage and inculcate in its members qualities and habits of work, thrift, and self-reliance."

Ever growing, H.S.A. now handles beer mugs, college banners, birthday cakes, desk blotters, charter flights to Europe, three linen services, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, refrigerators, class rings, stationery, reserve book returns, long-distance furniture moving, and, of course, "milk, doughnuts and sandwiches." It publishes a slick paper guide for summer school students, and in termtime, the weekly Student Calendar. It runs a grill in the Union and in Eliot House; it sells hot-dogs in the stadium.

And the humble hotdog is H.S.A.'s biggest money-maker. One year ago the Stadium Concessions Agency took over food and program sales at football games from an outside professional organization. Sales rose 25 per cent the first year and may go even higher this season. Net profit to the managers and employees of Stadium Concessions reached nearly $10,000, a fifth of the total for H.S.A. as a whole.

Clad each Saturday in white rented uniforms (with "Harvard Student Agencies" embroidered in crimson), the student vendors plod up and down the aisles, crying their wares: hotdogs, peanuts, icecream, coffee and orange drink. Last week the Agency hired over 100 students as vendors. It is big business. Their vending equipment--tanks for the liquids, baskets for the other food--had to be purchased; carton after carton of supplies ordered; and the food prepared with either ice or fire.

As a final touch, the Agency has even taught its vendors how to appeal to their Harvard customers. "Get your icecold hotdog here," one was heard to wail, offering a tolerably warm specimen. Then plaintively, "Please, somebody buy this hotdog." And people do. Each sale earns three cents for the hawker, and a penny saved is $50,000 a year net.