Harvard and the Sexual Revolution

Hampshire, Berkeley and Brown universities all try to claim the mantle of the progressive, revolutionary university. Eliminating directed-study Core-like requirements or any requirements at all, democratizing who can teach and what qualifies as education, these universities have pushed forward in so many areas.

One of the most important areas deals with questions of sexual parity. Co-ed dorms, floors and even rooms have been held up to scrutiny as the sign of truly egalitarian relations between members of the student body, regardless of gender.

However, in the steeped halls, or rather basements, of our very own Harvard is another Harvard first that has gone unnoticed, neglected from its important place in the history of equity in collegiate life.

Until now. Come, ye pilgrims, down the spiral staircase to nowhere leading down from the Lowell House dining hall, enter the tastefully unmarked doors, into the bathroom. Mirrors on one wall conscientiously placed above sinks, a row of stalls on the right and urinals tucked behind a wall; this is the monument to the co-ed bathroom, a sense that a community that eats together can share all aspects of that experience.

In the end, Hampshire, Berkeley and the rest are right; the intellectual environment is improved when one must contemplate why, in the auto-pilot of self-absorption that is washing and drying hands, we stop in our tracks at the sight of a woman exiting one stall and a man entering the next-why these two Harvard students, equal under the veritas, stand momentarily and wonder at each other. This truly is the meaning of liberal education.

In this era of incorporating the former Radcliffe-affiliated institutions more fully into Harvard College, the half-century of Lamont Library, too, can be celebrated by ending the every-other-floor confusion of bathrooms in that library, built for a single-sex Harvard community, and creating a truly momentous statement of the new-found Harvard unity of male and female, study and life. Come share the bathroom with your student body.

Fruit of Many Colors

Diversity is the mantra at Harvard, except on the fruit table.

Take a peek into an Ec 10 lecture and you get the impression that Harvard has chosen a representative student of every race, background, dogma and creed. Visit a dining hall, though, and you get the impression that Harvard thinks the only edible plant ovaries come from apples, oranges and bananas.

We're not saying that nary another fruit is ever seen in a dining hall. Why just last week canned pineapple made a cameo appearance on the salad bar, and every so often a pear turns up incognito in the apple bin.

Nor are we saying that the cuisine at Harvard shows a complete lack of diversity. We seem to be doing fine in the grain department-indeed, choosing whether to toast a bagel, a muffin, white bread or multi-grain has left us chasing the shuttle on many early morns. And the spectrum of vegetables isn't poorly represented either-imagine, butternut squash and snow peas on the same night!

But we are saying that Harvard has fallen prey to an unfruitful nearsightedness. Hast not a nectarine eyes, hands, organs, dimensions-or at least a stem and sweet juicy flesh? Is there a reason that mangos and granny smiths cannot sit together on the same fruit table of brotherhood?

The menu alteration doesn't have to be dramatic-although dining hall memberships to the Williams-Sonoma "Fruit of the Month" club would be more than appreciated. But it's about time that Harvard realizes that fruit comes in more than three shapes and sizes. The tasteless elitism has got to stop.

A COMMUNITY OF EQUALS-Adam I. Arenson; FORBIDDEN FRUIT-Lauren E. Baer