Students with a financial stake in the MAC would no longer tolerate the incompetence of its current management. A $25 investment might concentrate responsibility and ownership enough to deter would-be thieves and abusers.
Revenues generated by the fee could be used to repair damaged machines or purchase new equipment altogether.
Admittedly, the imposition of a membership fee would be wildly unpopular, particularly in the wake of soaring tuition costs and George Bush's tax increases. What's worse, it might not produce the intended effect. Rather than reducing attendance at the MAC, such a fee might actually encourage rich students with no coordination or competence but lots of disposable income to return to the MAC more frequently and get the most for their dollar.
Which is why, in addition to a membership fee, I also propose:
Periodic certification. You need not be a professional bodybuilder nor have an intimate knowledge of muscular kinesiology to qualify for membership at the MAC. But you would have to demonstrate a basic level of commitment to physical fitness and a level of competence that go beyond that of the typical back-to-school, New Year's resolution, Spring Break Crowd.
Certification would insure not only the proper use of and respect for MAC equipment but also the safety of its users-- something the University talks a lot about when it comes to parties and fire extinguishers. A mandatory tutorial on weight training, taught by a friendly MAC rat, would be entirely consistent with the array of workshops, presentations and speeches that the administration forces firstyears to endure each fall.
PROPONENTS of diversity will challenge the principles behind my proposals. Rather than merely promote bodybuilding excellence among a select elite, they would argue, the MAC should strive to include students of all skill levels and backgrounds. To do otherwise would smack a Buchanan-like nativism, even fascism.
MAC rats, some might claim, apply too narrow a standard of "excellence." We simply do not understand the reader nor appreciate the unique "perspective" she brings to the weight room.
Perhaps. But there are plenty of gyms around campus where a reader can more effectively lend her unique perspective--Adams and Dunster come to mind--without causing so much consternation. Because it boasts the broadest selection and highest quality of equipment this side of the river, the MAC should cater only to the serious and successful, not the incompetent and insane.
Besides, the combination of free weights, universal machines and Nautilus equipment already guarantees some degree of pluralism and diversity at the MAC.
PLEASE don't misunderstand us. MAC rats support, indeed encourage, the popular pursuit of physical fitness at all levels of skill and interest, just as celebrated pianists might promote an appreciation of music among the general public. But never having taken piano lessons, I have no more a right to bang the keys in Paine Hall than the talker has to bang the weights in the MAC.
Ever suspicious of regulatory red tape, conservatives might object to user fees and certification requirements as unwarranted intrusions into the pocketbooks and lives of Harvard students, the latest steps down the path of administrative micromanagement that began with randomization in 1990.
The current situation, however, contains market distortions painfully obvious to any defender of free enterprise. Moreover, one must recall Thomas Jefferson's dictum: "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
Indeed, MAC rats must vigilantly protect their precious liberties before they are drowned in a cesspool of mediocrity. To do any less would be unhealthy.
Mark J Sneider '93 has seen every Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Twice.