Council Doubles Grants To ‘Super-Sized’ Suites

Harvard’s social scene stereotypically gets pegged as sub-par. Facing a host of regulations that include a 2:00 a.m. shutdown, parties on campus rely heavily on small gatherings in student suites.

But this fall, in an attempt to revitalize the social options on campus, the Undergraduate Council (UC) revised its party funding regulations. New grants aim to increase the quality and quantity of large-scale parties on campus, possibly expanding the social options for undergraduates wandering in search of fun on a Friday night.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

The UC awards party fund grants each week after evaluating submission forms from upperclassmen. Upperclassmen are awarded these grants provided their parties meet certain conditions—such as providing food, serving non-alcoholic beverages, and publicizing the event to a “significant number of undergraduates,” according to the UC website. The parties must also be unaffiliated with any student groups, final clubs, or fraternities.

Freshmen seeking to fund some late-night fun can also apply for a $50 common room event grant, one of five that the UC awards each week.

Up until this fall, the UC awarded 13 party grants each week. Regardless of the size of the hosting suite, each room was awarded $100. But this changed in October when UC members Alexandra M. Gutierrez ’08 and Jia “Jane” Fang ’08 sponsored a bill overhauling the process. The bill reduced the number of upperclass parties funded weekly by the UC from 13 to 10, and it created a list of 14 “super party suites.” This list includes suites that have long been recognized by the student body as party zones, including the Ten Man in Currier and the Pfoho Belltower.

When these suites now apply to host a party, they are automatically granted double funding: $200 per party.

If three regular suites join together to throw a party, they can qualify for double funding. Individual suites can also apply to get on the super party suite list and, thus, qualify for the increased funding.

But there have not been many new requests for super suite status, Fang says.

“Right now we’re working off a list that’s more or less obvious...Rooms can apply, but it hasn’t been an issue,” she says. Since suites haven’t applied for “super” status, the UC has no protocol for evaluating new applications.

Fang says she is very optimistic about how the program has turned out in the first few months.

“I think the experiment we used was enormously successful,” she says.

UC President John S. Haddock ’07 says he plans to expand on the program during the upcoming year. “The fund is an acknowledgement that many people like to spend their weekends this way, and it’s a creative way for the UC to be involved and open up accessibility to underclassmen and upperclassmen,” he says.

PLAYING HARDER

Mat K. Lausberg ’08, who lives in the Currier Seven Man, one of the suites listed as having “super” status by the UC, reports that with the new UC funding initiative, suite members and their guests have noticed a shift in the quality of their social lives.

“Before super party funding, we had some so-so parties, but after we threw much better parties with more alcohol, more people [attended],” Lausberg says. “The funding has definitely affected the quality of the parties in a positive way.”

Harvard does not deserve its reputation as an anti-partying school, Lausberg says.

“If you want to go out on the weekend and have fun, there are parties to facilitate that. These grants have made it easier,” he says.

While Pat M. Regan ’06, who lives in the Currier Ten Man, agrees that the funding has boosted the quality of parties, this has not necessarily increased their quantity.

“We definitely buy more supplies with super party grants but I don’t think that’s translated into more people attending our parties. I’d say the super grants haven’t affected the size of our parties so much as the wetness of our beds the next day,” Regan writes in an e-mail. On average, his suite throws parties every other weekend with 25 to 75 people in attendance at one time, Regan writes.

THE GUEST LIST

Despite funding from the UC, these parties cater to a specific set of people. Hosts of these large party zones say their invitation lists consist primarily of friends.

Regan gets word out about the Ten Man parties by e-mailing “a list of a few hundred people.”

Yet even this somewhat selective approach does not weed out party crashers. “Then there’s the random assortment of underclassmen no one is really quite sure of, who just hear there’s a party in the Ten Man,” Regan writes.

Such diversity of guests requires a certain amount of social savoir-faire from the hosts. “When there’s a mix like that, the challenge becomes making sure none of us gets too pissed at someone else’s friend and tries to kick him out, thinking he’s some random freshman,” adds Regan.

The super party funds increase the options of both upperclassmen and freshmen, according to Lausberg.

“As a freshman male last year, it was hard to find parties. You can’t get into the final clubs, you can’t go to bars—your only option really is a party in a suite,” he says.

But Lausberg says that as a host of several large-scale parties, he is now warier of the hordes of freshmen who attend his parties. “We might get a little annoyed if it’s a ton of guys, but we haven’t been very strict about it,” he says. “If it’s a mixed group that’s great, and if it’s a bunch of girls, that’s even better!”

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

Molly E. Mehaffey ’06, a member of the Quincy House Committee (HoCo), says she finds party crashers a problem particular to super parties.

“When my friends and I get to the super party rooms where our friends live, we either can’t get in due to overcrowding, or we don’t know anyone there because the room is just filled with tons of people who don’t know the people throwing the party, they just follow the noise,” she writes in an e-mail. “That is kind of a pain.”

Haddock says he plans to post a list on the UC website of rooms that receive UC party grants for each upcoming weekend.

“Our biggest priority is that the parties are well-publicized. The UC provides a great student service with the party funds, but people don’t know what’s going on,” he says. “Different houses have different rules about publicizing parties on house lists and we want to create a central place where those parties will be available.”

But Mehaffey says she is less enthusiastic about such an idea. “I personally think [creating a central list] would lead to overcrowding,” she writes in an e-mail.

Haddock agrees that overcrowding is an issue, but says that posting a list of parties on the UC website would increase the number of social opportunities on campus.

“Our goal is not to be funding private birthday parties. We want to make this fun accessible to the whole campus,” he says.

For Carmelo C. Tringali ’08, who also lives in the Currier Seven Man, making the party list available online is an issue of fairness. “The UC-issued party grants are for the student body and I think that the students should be able to know the location and time of these parties being funded,” he writes in an e-mail.

Tringali adds that a public list would also prevent abuse of the party fund system.

“Posting a list of UC-funded parties will probably make the groups being funded more accountable to throwing good parties and not pocketing the money or stocking their own bars.”

—Staff writer Jillian M. Bunting can be reached at jbunting@fas.harvard.edu.