HSA Selects New President

Timothy J.J. Creamer ’09 may not have to personally pick up your laundry, but now he will have to make sure someone else does.

The economics concentrator and Winthrop House resident was elected Tuesday as president of Harvard Student Agencies (HSA), the student-run corporation that offers its own cleaning service, rents out dorm-room appliances, and publishes the student travel guide Let’s Go.

“We are trying to improve our relationship with the campus,” Creamer said. “We think we can do a lot more to show them the entirety of our company instead of the few high-profile divisions.”

Creamer emphasized that HSA oversees several important but less well known tasks, including coordinating advertising on campus and fostering business initiatives.

He said he wants to focus on refining HSA’s services so they better appeal to students.

Jessica-Kate O. Ogungbadero ’09, one of HSA’s assistant managers, said Creamer’s vision for HSA is the biggest thing he brings to the presidency.

“I think that we’ve spurred entrepreneurship in a lot of the agencies,” said current president, William B. Hauser ’08.

Over the past year, the organization devoted significant resources to ensuring the survival of Let’s Go, whose long-time publisher announced in September that it will not continue its partnership with HSA after their contract expires in 2009.

HSA came under fire from students this past year for offering summer storage through the storage and shipping company Collegeboxes.

In 2006, the company lost belongings of Harvard undergraduates who had used the service. The University and HSA drew ire from some students when they contracted with the service again this summer.

Creamer said after the problems in 2006, HSA changed the administration of the program, realizing more oversight was needed. He said the number of problems was very low this year.

“It’s just trying to rebuild our reputation with the campus,” Creamer said. “I think that we really do offer a great service and its bizarre that we’re not given enough credit and students seem to be less convinced.”