The forces that have shaped the Harvard Class of '84 go deeper than the structural level. Epps calls the graduating class the "Reagan generation," not because of the ideological solidarity--far from it--but because the style and substance of campus politics has been powerfully shaped by President Reagan.

Just six weeks after they arrived at Harvard. Reagan won the presidency and the Republicans captured the Senate. The coincidence of a sharp break in their personal lives and a sharp change in the country's leadership has indelibly marked November 4, 1980 in their minds. Like the assassination of John F. Kennedy for an earlier generation, almost every senior knows where he was and what he was thinking the night of that election. For the largely liberal student body, the reaction was shock. James Orenstein '84 was in the middle of a play rehersal when "someone broke in and said that Carter had conceded and Reagan had won. Everyone was stunned, they just stood there."

Rhonda L. Karol '84 was walking back from the library when we saw a group of students sarcastically singing "God Bless America." Laura A. Haight '84 remembers "getting drunk with a friend of mine who had never gotten drunk before. A bunch of us went around wearing black."

Eliot T. Kieval '84 joined 200 other students the next day in a hastily organized "Unite Against the New Right" rally by Memorial Church. "We chanted and sang songs, but I left early because I realized it wasn't going to do anything."

The long-term effects of that election are difficult to assess. The Reagan Administration has sparked a lot of criticism, and in the spring of freshman year 2000 people marched through the Yard and the streets to protest the United States policy toward El Salvador. Two years later, several hundred students showed up at a demonstration against draft registration.

Yet some have suggested that the last four years saw a relative calm descend on campus. Haight says the Reagan years "have just made people more cynical and disillusioned. It almost seems silly to spend time on one issue when everything's going wrong."

Ford Professor of Social Science Emeritus David Riesman '31 concurs that the long shadow of the Reagan presidency has fostered a sense of "futility," especially on the issue of nuclear weapons. He notes that while the issue has sparked intense interest around the country, it has attracted little political action here--a sharp contrast with the late 50s and early 60s when Riesman and some colleagues drew hundreds of students to fight for the test ban.

When Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the leaders of the anti-nuclear movement, appeared at the Quincy House Dining Hall earlier this spring, "she got a polite round of applause from some of the people there--half the people didn't even turn around to stop eating," says Steven R. Swartz '84.

Epps finds the change encouraging. He says the Class of '84 represents a new generation that is "less idealistic and more wise," a group which "strikes a balance between passionate commitment and practical use." The seniors are "less a part of the national and international struggle than their predecessors, college is a time to be apart from the world."

While that may be true, interest in campus issues has remained strong and perhaps even intensified. One movement which practically every student or administrator cites as dominating the past four years has been the women's movement. Two highly publicized cases of prominent male professors sexually harassing women students and faculty, as well as a survey showing that a very high proportion of women at Harvard have been threatened is some form, brought unprecedented attention to the question.

John R. Marquand, assistant dean of the College, says that a "change in consciousness has permeated social relations between men and women. People are more self-conscious about being alert to these issues." Swartz says that when he first came to Harvard. "I wasn't sensitive to or as knowledgeable about harassment." He says he first thought the specific cases were isolated incidents, and that he was surprised by the studies. In the fall, as news director of WHRB, he talked to the staff and told them "to be extra careful of how they treated the compers, that they were in a special relationship," Swartz adds. "I wouldn't have ever broached that subject with people if it hadn't been for the news over the last year."

Campus political procedure has also changed during the class of '84's tenure. The disjointed, ineffectual student government centered around the Student Assembly died at the end of sophomore year, and was replaced by the centrally funded Undergraduate Council the next fall. With student-faculty committees and the power to fund student activities, the Council earned the respect of many administrators and undergraduates. Kieval remembers March of his sophomore year, when plans for the nascent organization were placed under students' doors. "I always thought that student government was a joke," he says, adding that when he read the Undergraduate Council charter, "something in my mind clicked. I said this is it, this is good. I must get involved. This was a way for students to start expressing their opinion and maybe be taken seriously." Kieval won a Winthrop House seat the next fall, and went on to become Council historian and treasurer.

The past four years have seen the evolution and establishment of the Core Curriculum. Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky's pet project. Many seniors have praise for the new course offerings, but some of the more memorable aspects of the program have been the problems affiliated with its growing pains.

Most of the horror stories resulted from over-subscribed courses. One of the most infamous was Moral Reasoning 21 taught in spring 1982, which Visiting Philosophy Professor Ronald Dworkin taught as a discussion course before 800 people in Sanders Theater. Another was Literature and Arts B-16, which in the spring of 1983 drew 600 students to a 400 maximum course. Flip-flops in the admissions policy, with lotteries cancelled as fast as they were created, caused mass confusion up until the study card deadline.

And for the first time in many years, varsity athletics set the campus on fire. In the past four years, several men's and women's teams snagged championships, converting hundreds of undergraduates known for the relative lack of enthusiasm into wildly cheering fans. Many seniors cite athletic events as their most vivid Harvard memories--including the victory over Yale in the hundredth edition of The Game to snag a part of the Ivy Title, and the heartbreaking loss to the Penn football team on a last second field goal.

The hockey team's hot streak, culminating in a second place NCAA finish in 1983, generated the most electricity. Andrew A. Bernstein recalls the first sign of success the Beanpot victory of 1981. "The Harvard band played on the subway on the way back. People did not want to let people on who were not from Harvard because they wanted to sing Harvard songs."

In Bright Arena during the following two years, there were probably more seniors assembled as a single place than there had been since freshman week, and more than there would be until this morning. "You could feel as if you were a part of it," says Berstein. "The crowd got the team going as much as the team got the crowd going."