The Roar of the Crowd

Administrators have tried for years, mostly in vain, to figure out just what Harvard undergraduates want. Now they've got a few clues.

A new name for the Engelhard Library of Public Affairs is on the list. So is the option to take drama courses for credit and go to a foreign country to study, not to mention a Writing Center. Free toilet paper, too, unless of course you've already got it. And, of course, the option to eat only 14 meals a week on board.

Those, at least, are the results of a Student Assembly referendum, the first wide-ranging survey of student opinions conducted in recent years and the body's first major project. More than 3780 undergraduates--almost 60 per cent of the student body--took part in the survey.

Of that group, 52 per cent said the University should "take whatever steps necessary" to change the name of the Kennedy School library, which is named after the late Charles W. Engelhard, an American businessman who built his fortune through mining interests in South Africa.

The chances of changing the Engelhard Library's name are slim at the very best, most administrators agree. But Richard C. Marius, director of the Expository Writing program, says he will do all he can to revive the undergraduate Writing Center, whose operations were suspended this fall for lack of cash. Marius this week promised that Expos teachers will each contribute one free hour a week to help students with their prose next fall.

On the theater front, Dean Rosovsky said the chance to take drama courses for credit already exists, under a set of guidelines the Faculty Council passed last year to establish criteria for such courses.

On a more mundane level, River House residents--who currently pay for toilet paper--not surprisingly said they want it free. And Quad residents, who don't pay for toilet paper, say they won't pay so everyone else can have it free. So much for Adam Smith's "invisible hand."

A whopping 61 per cent of students reserved judgment on the Student Assembly's performance thus far. James A. Deutsch '80, vice president of the assembly, called the students' choice rational. To some extent.