7 p.m. The day has begun to wind down for most people. The sun has set, and the white steeple of Memorial Church contrasts strongly with the dark sky. For two Room 13 counselors, however, the night has just begun. These two students will be on duty for the next 12 hours, offering a warm place and an open ear to all who drop by.

Open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. seven days a week, Room 13 is an all-night source of support and counseling for Harvard undergraduates. "It gives people a place where we can help them listen to themselves," says Deborah C. Cohen '86, one of the program's two co-directors. One man and one woman sacrifice their sleep every night to staff the basement office in Stoughton Hall, providing a referral service to other agencies and listening to and talking about people's problems--serious or major, important or not.

"The whole variety of life gets reflected in the calls we get," says Cohen. Thirty student counselors deal with such wide-ranging subjects as contraceptives and eating problems, rape and suicide, sexual harassment, cross-cultural problems, and death. "We can be very serious or very casual," says Cohen. "We're not going to drag a problem out of a person, but we're there if somebody [has a serious problem]. They can walk in and start crying if they want to, and we won't be shocked."

"We've always had the idea that we'll talk to anybody about anything the want to talk about," said George N. Postolos '86, the other co-director. "We don't give advice; we don't feel we're qualified to judge situations. We're [just] offering students someone to talk to," he says, describing what he calls Room 13's "philosophy of counseling." Postolos says that counselors try to get people to think about alternatives and "what they think about those alternatives."

"It's hard to find someone who can really listen to you."

11 p.m. Most students are back in their rooms by now. The room at Room 13 is furnished with old sofas and overstuffed chairs. There is a serviceable if not beautiful pale green carpet, and a New York poster hangs on one wall. The exposed pipes overhead let visitors know that it's a basement, but it's not uncomfortable.

Room 13 hasn't always been in Harvard Yard. When founded in the spring of 1971, the program actually occupied room 13 at Mather House. It retained the name Room 13 when it moved to Stoughton Hall in 1976 for greater accessibility.

The first counselors dealt especially with problems revolving around drugs and the draft--two issues that Postolos called "signs of the times."

"There was a need for students to be able to talk to students about things going on on campus," says Cohen. "There was a lot of distress between students and the administration and any sort of professional counseling." She says that Room 13 helped fill the void created by the reluctance to get professional help in the early '70s.

Nearly 15 years later the nature of the issues Room 13 deals with have changed, Cohen says. "We see more relationship issues," said Postolos, "more issues specific to the Harvard environment, such as academic or rooming problems."

"The times were different (back then)," says Room 13 supervisor Suzanne Repetto. "The whole political and economic climate was different; student needs reflect what's going on now." A senior counselor with the Bureau of Study Counsel, Repetto has been a supervisor for seven years. The five Room 13 senior counselors--two from the Bureau of Study Counsel and three from the University Health Services--oversee and support the work of the counselors.

Repetto adds that some things are very much the same: problems with getting adjusted to a new place, how you make friends, how you find your way around, and what to do when you're homesick.

Postolos cautions, however, against labeling problems: "Categorizing problems is against the idea that each person has a different story to tell. Someone's bringing a part of his experience to us, and it's not a neat, little package or a category at all."

When Room 13 was founded, it was the only peer counseling organization on campus. Today, there are five, including Contact, Response, Peer Contraceptive Counseling, and the Eating Problems Outreach program.

"[Peer counseling offers] an increased sensitivity because many of the counselors are living through similar life circumstances and hence can be emphatic in ways that professional counselors can't," says Robert R. Read, a Room 13 supervisor and a counselor for the Bureau of Study Counsel.