The University is spending $25 million to build a new student center for September 1995 in Memorial Hall. The irony is that, although some may not realize it, Harvard already has one. And for students, it doesn't cost a thing.

Welcome to the computer network.

During this academic year, an unprecedented number of undergraduates, graduate students, professors and administrators signed up for accounts on Harvard's link to the internet, a global data communication network.

"There's no student center here, right?" asks Franklin Steen, who recently was hired away from Yale to become the newly appointed director of the Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS). "The computer has become a kind of student center."

Over the past nine months, in fact, student usage of the network doubled, with undergraduates employing the network to send e-mail to old friends, turn in problem sets and papers, read the newspaper and even fall in love.

"An e-mail address is almost socially required now," says Ishir Bhan '96, co-founder of the student technology group Digitas. "No longer are people who are knowledgeable about computers viewed as `geeky.' Rather, the student body seems to view computer skills as more `cool' than they once were."

Roughly four out of every five undergraduatesnow have accounts on the network. And with thefirst-year Yard Bulletin and the housing lotterybeing run in cyberspace, virtually every member offuture first-year classes is expected to log-on.

Most undergraduates use computers in theScience Center to connect with the network, butabout 800 students have had connections in theirrooms activated. Administrators predict thatnumber will more than double during the next year.

With a critical mass of undergraduates on-line,some instructors are requiring students to turnpapers and assignments in over the network. Andother classes, including Literature and Arts B-77:"Worlds of music--Africa," Physics 15c andComputer Science 50, communicate with thoseenrolled via electronic bulletin boards callednewsgroups.

The future is even more promising. Allregistration materials--everything from courseschedules to handbooks--are expected to becomeavailable over the network's World Wide Web serverduring the next academic year.

And some sources familiar with HASCS saystudents may be able to register for classes overthe network by the time the new Memorial Hallopens in the fall of 1995.

"It's gotten to the point that if you don'tknow how to use the Internet, at least to aminimal extent, you're really missing out on theHarvard experience," Bhan says.

John A. Dooley '97, for example, starts hismornings by reading USA Today on the Internet.Angela W. Pan '97 communicates with friends andfamily in Taiwan by e-mail. David S. Filippi '94even met his first college girlfriend, a studentat the University of New Hampshire, over thenetwork.

"Until it actually happened I would havethought it was the most ridiculous thing," Filippisays of the romance, which lasted three months. "Istill think it's pretty humorous."

Administrators have caught the bug, too.Outgoing provost Jerry R. Green uses not the phonebut a sleek, black Powerbook to communicate withthe outside world.

"I probably answer ten e-mail messages forevery phone call, just because it's much easier,"Green says. "Most of [the administrators] that Iknow are on e-mail."