On Housing Day

On this fateful morning, every member of the Class of 2019 will learn which of the 12 Houses they can expect to live in for the next three years. It’s a big deal. On Housing Day, as we’ve come to call the Thursday before spring break, anxious freshmen will wake up early to wait with anticipation for a knock on their dorm room door—the arrival of a gaggle of their future housemates, spirited and excited to welcome the newbies into their House’s fold.

The excitement of Housing Day and the joy in its festivities are undeniably warranted. By the end of our years at Harvard, we will be able to look back on this day as the beginning of our membership in one of 12 sub-communities at Harvard that become a home to each of its student members.

And yet, in recent months, we’ve found ourselves amid constant discussions about a lack of adequately welcoming social spaces on campus. So on this Housing Day, we’d like to remind everyone of the 12 social spaces—literal and figurative—that are just waiting to be shaped by the students within them. And in particular, we’d like to urge the freshmen to bear the torch in this endeavor. It is largely up to the students to make their Houses truly vibrant communities if this is what the students seek. Rising sophomores should know that merely living in a House will not make it a community.

We admit, there are kinks in the Housing Day proceedings—if not the upperclass housing system in general—that could use some straightening. Take the element of storming the freshman dorms, for example. Though the appearance of cheering, House-attired upperclassmen is an exciting way to hear the results of the housing lottery for some, students with social anxiety may find this tradition to be overwhelming and uncomfortable. And though it’s designed to be enjoyed by blocking groups of all sizes, some floaters don’t enjoy the prospect of a rowdy group of upperclassmen descending on their dorm room. For these students, the email notification sent later in the day is a sufficient announcement of the result of their housing lottery. They should be allowed to opt out of the festivities if they so desire and receive an email at the same time dorms are stormed.

Likewise, in the interest of reducing stress for everyone involved, we’d like to see Housing Day moved to the Saturday before spring break. This way, freshmen would not have to worry about juggling midterms, homework, and extracurricular commitments while also participating in the Housing Day programming.

Regardless of the logistics of Housing Day’s festivities, this Thursday is a day to celebrate the re-calibrating of Harvard’s social terrain. For the next few months, every student on this campus will be affiliated with a House, each one special and each with the potential to become a welcoming, energizing, and exciting home for its members if they are willing to make it so. While there is much to be done to render the Houses fully inclusive social spaces for students, that work can and should start with the student body.

House life is an opportunity to build a community at Harvard, but it is what you make of it. To the upperclassmen already in Houses: welcome your freshmen energetically. And to the freshmen preparing to join a House: go forth and do so with verve. Don’t waste a year or even a semester feeling timid about joining your House’s community. You’ve only got a few before it’s time to go. If we truly want to create more and more varied social spaces, we should start with the Houses, and we should start today.