Hapless on the Harbor

Ten thousand dollars lost in good faith is still ten thousand dollars. Between negotiation fees for the defunct Snoop Dogg Springfest concert and the under-attended Campus Life Committee (CLC) event “Havana on the Harbor,” Harvard’s Undergraduate Council (UC) is in the red for a near-five-figure sum. But although the negotiation fees were unavoidable expenses as the UC sought to secure a top-shelf act, Havana on the Harbor was an unmitigated waste of student money. The UC, and especially the CLC, must eschew overly risky endeavors as they attempt to provide Harvard students with alternative social events.

By and large, the UC has enjoyed unprecedented success in its efforts this year. The council conducted two extensive surveys of student opinion to secure extended hours for Lamont Library and agitate for a potential lengthening of dining hall hours. In these advocacy efforts, the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) has been diligent in soliciting student opinion before embarking on any major effort.

But student advocacy is a different game from improving campus life. SAC’s mission involves neither the risks nor the monetary expenditures that that CLC’s leadership must deal with on a daily basis. Even so, CLC continues to enjoy success with its movie nights, discounted movie tickets, and many other undertakings. There will never be a foolproof equation for throwing a successful campus social event. Still, the CLC and the UC as a whole should have asked more questions before approving a risky event like Havana on the Harbor.

When 50 people buy tickets for an event with a published capacity of 375, there has to have been a miscalculation somewhere. This was the first harbor cruise event ever held by the UC. Though the annual Moonlight Cruise for seniors nearly always sells out, the prospect of spending three hours on a Havana-themed boat with a cash bar on an (uncontrollably) rainy Friday night held decidedly less allure. It was so hard for this event to go right, and so easy for it to go wrong.

Many of these circumstances, like the weather, were impossible to foresee. But that’s the point. Taking a $2,350 risk on an unproven concept like Havana on the Harbor was one way for the UC to answer students who contend the UC just does the same thing over and over. But it was a far too radical answer. The UC doesn’t yet have the credibility to put on such a huge party. Perhaps aware of this fact, Havana organizers sought help from the Crimson Dance Team to promote the event. Despite such publicity efforts, and before the rain was ever in the picture, ticket sales were stagnant.

The UC and the CLC must not blame the failure of Havana on the Harbor on Mother Nature. By our reckoning, the event was doomed from the start—from the minute students saw the announcement in their inboxes and asked: “The UC’s throwing a booze cruise?” Future UC parties must strike a better balance between risk and reward. We appreciate and encourage the CLC’s attempts to innovate and seek out new ways of improving campus life, but isolated failures like Havana cannot turn into a trend. Nearly twenty-five hundred dollars is a steep price to pay for a proof-of-concept.