What would we put in a Harvard time capsule?

That was the question on my mind after reading about the "New York Times Capsule" last Sunday. On the face of it, the concept of a millennial time capsule sounds simple enough: Create a vessel--sealed with late-20th century artifacts--with instructions that it should be opened no earlier than the year 3000.

But, as the editors of the Times explain, the project, which began several months ago, encountered two major problems.

First, what the heck goes in it? According to Times editor Jack Rosenthal, the goal of the project was "not to encapsulate all of civilization, but to try to offer our progeny a snapshot of what life was like back when three zeros clicked into place for the third millennium."

In this spirit, the paper's editors and writers have been entertaining suggestions from its readers, as well as canvassing smalltown Americans. (The final decision has yet to be made and the capsule won't be sealed until next spring). But even a "snapshot" of life, applied to the whole of human civilization, is pretty ambitious.

And so I thought I'd narrow the scope a bit: What would we put in a Harvard time capsule? Provided the University still exists in 1000 years--although there is a good chance that it won't--what kind of snapshot can we offer about undergraduate life at one of America's premiere educational institutions?

I posed this question to a number of students and received a variety of responses. Some of the more common: copies of this newspaper, ID cards, a blue book, a portrait of the University president (or, alternatively, a self-portrait, labeled "University president"), the Users Guide to the Ad Board, a shuttle schedule, a lock of hair (shellacked or otherwise) and at least half a dozen objects alluding to how much Yale sucks.

All in all, it's not a very good list. For one thing, these objects are meaningful only because they are placed in some greater social context. But once that context is forgotten, the objects lose their intended meaning.