What prompted this newly student-friendly university?

One likely factor is new personalities eager to make good impressions. Rudenstine, Berry and Mackay-Smith are all new to their positions. They want to start the year on the right foot.

Still, Harvard administrators have traditionally had no obligation--or desire--to please anyone other than their immediate superiors. Why has Harvard suddenly gotten into the student satisfaction business?

The concern with creature comforts for undergraduates is a national trend, according to Edward B. Fiske, author of The Fiske Guide to Colleges and former education reporter for The New York Times.

"The care and feeding of undergraduates has been something that colleges have been thinking about," Fiske says. He says the declining number of 18-year-olds in the country has put students in a buyer's market.

In other words, colleges must compete for a smaller pool of students, and new buildings and "customer service" are one way to compete.

As a result, Fiske says, "the mentality that students bring to college now is much more of a consumer mentality." Students and parents are looking at the high price they pay for college and expecting a lot in return.

So far this year, indications are that Harvard is giving more than it ever has. Granted, some dorms badly need renovation, and many sectors of the Harvard bureacracy have not yet gotten the student-friendly idea. And, of course, tuition is higher than ever. But to many students, little things mean a lot.