Callers Tell Students of Installation

Days before President Lawrence H. Summers is officially installed before a crowd expected to reach 10,000 people, the University has enlisted the Harvard College Fund’s team of Crimson Callers to phone undergraduates and remind them to attend the event.

Normally, the student callers spend their time soliciting alumni donations, but they have been left with little to do after the University temporarily suspended alumni fundraising following the Sept. 11 attacks. Phone solicitations will resume Oct. 15.

In the interlude, the phone team will be calling all 6,000 Harvard undergraduates before the Friday event.

“President Summers is very interested in having undergraduates present at his inauguration,” said Jacqueline O’Neill, staff director in the president’s office.

The University has already sent tickets for the installation to all undergraduates, but in the next few days it will be mounting a larger effort to make sure they attend the once-in-a-decade event. The effort will include posters over campus, reminder e-mails and an advertisement in The Crimson.

“The phone calls were a small piece of the plan,” said Development Office spokesperson Andy Tiedemann. “This is a historic event and we want people there.”

The University has also sent e-mails to all Massachusetts alumni, letting them know that tickets are available. Harvard staffers have received letters encouraging them to attend.

For the Crimson Callers, the publicity effort brought new work, just as their previous job of calling alumni had been called off.

“In light of what occurred on September 11, this was not the time to make those calls. Since we weren’t making those calls, this was something else we could do to help out,” said Harvard College Fund officer Kristen Wunderley.

But the extra effort for the installation, while giving work to the Crimson Callers, is also part of Summers’ larger push to appear inclusive and accessible.

During his early months in office, Summers has consistently pushed student involvement and particularly undergraduate involvement to the fore.

Summers has requested that Undergraduate Council President Paul A. Gusmorino ’02 speak at the ceremony, making him the first student to speak at a Harvard presidential installation in recent history (see related story, page 1).

Even with Summers’ early efforts, though, O’Neill said they still worried that undergraduates might miss the ceremony.

“Lots of times students don’t focus until the last minute. People are distracted,” she said. “The whole point is to make students know they are welcome to come.”

For students like Ryan S. Alfred ’05 , forgetting was never a question, however.

“[The phone call] was a nice gesture. I already knew about it so it wasn’t necessary for me,” he said. “I’m going because I feel as a Harvard student I should be there.”