It will take a whole lot more than $25,000, but the Undergraduate Council says at least that's a start.

When the council voted earlier this month to allocate that much of the infamous $40,000 budget surplus, council members said they were one step closer to building the mecca of meeting places that every student group dreams of.

But the College doesn't share the same vision. While Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III long ago drafted plans for a "College Hall"--a student center following in the tradition of the Freshman Union-other College administrators have said they are less willing to allocate space and money to build an undergraduate complex. Student centers like the ones at Duke and Brown universities and the University of Pennsylvania are unlikely to be duplicated in Cambridge.

Student group leaders may simply have to grow comfortable in their cramped quarters in the basements of Holworthy and Thayer halls.

Checkbook Diplomacy

Student offices, performance venues and plush armchairs. This is the vision of the council, which has been strongly pushing the idea of a student center since November.

The council threw their weight behind this vision early this month by allocating $25,000 to the proposed student center--the largest single allocation of funds in council history. The money was not given without strings attached. In order to receive it, the University has one year to hire an architect, create a planning committee that includes students and make a timetable for the building process.

Samuel C. Cohen '00, who chairs the council's student center working group, says the money can make a difference.

"I would like to think it will have a big impact. It definitely is a shot or a gamble," Cohen said. "In my opinion, it's a gamble the council needs to take."

If successful, Cohen and council President Noah Z. Seton '00 hope to centralize student group offices, create common social space, performance and rehearsal space and offer smaller conveniences such as a mail depot and a copy center.

"Offices are spread around campus, mostly in the basements of Yard dorms," Seton said. "By locating all of the student group offices in one place, we'll move toward a sense of community."

Ideally the council hopes to build a student center similar to Brown University's Faunce House complex.

According to Brown's Associate Dean of Student Life David Inman, Faunce House hosts office space for 40 student organizations, including several publications, Brown's student TV and radio stations, theater groups and the Undergraduate Council of Students (UCS).

"Where we do share spaces, we group clubs together whose schedules do not rub elbows," Inman says. "We also try to group similar types of clubs in the same space."

Faunce House also contains a computer center often utilized by campus publications, a licensed pub--for Brown students only--a post office, a hair stylist, the Campus Market, an eatery and a darkroom.

According to Inman, women's organizations at Brown are housed in the Sarah Doyle Women's Center, while most minority student groups are supported by the Third World Center, which plays host to multi-cultural events and programs.

The Naysayers

College administrators say they are fully aware of the lack of student space. But they also say that don't see a student center like Faunce House as a practical solution.

"We have never felt that a central student center, such as those that exist at universities that have massive blocks of dormitories with few common spaces, would be appropriate here," Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles wrote in an e-mail message.

"Everybody has an office and every-body can rent Memorial Hall," Knowles added in an interview with The Crimson yesterday. "That's how the College runs."

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 also expressed an aversion to the council's vision of a large center with room for student groups and student socializing.

"I think we need more space for student offices, publications, rehearsal space...and a number of other things that support educationally valuable extracurricular activities," he wrote in an e-mail message. "But when I hear `student center,' I think of video games and pizza, which I don't think we need."

Lewis also said he wasn't optimistic about the potential effect of the council's $25,000 pledge.

"I don't think that's a wise use of the money that Harvard had collected on the UC'sbehalf for distribution to student activities andevents," Lewis said.

A Dream Come True

But the University of Pennsylvania (Penn)serves as a good example of what can happen whenstudents and the administration work together.

When constructing a new student center provedunfeasible, Penn opted for an $82.5 millionrenovation project of four buildings that willdouble the amount of space available for studentfunctions.

According to Thomas Hauber, director of thePerelman Quadrangle, student groups are beinghoused wherever space can be found while PerlmanQuad buildings--including Houston Hall, thenation's oldest student center-are graduallyreopened over the next year. When it reopens nextMay, Houston Hall will provide a myriad of studentservices, including a food court, a copy center, a2,700 square foot game room, a newsstand andmultiple meeting rooms.

According to Rick Gresh, a Penn graduate whoserved as the undergraduate representative to thePerelman Quadrangle Committee, the administrationactively sought student opinions on what servicesthe new center should provide.

"At first I was concerned about being the onlyundergrad on the committee, but...I was reallylistened to," Gresh says.

Houston will have permanent space for theStudent Activities office and student governinggroups, as well as 21 shared workspaces for moretransient groups.

"Those are for groups that want space, butdon't have a real need for it seven days a week,"Hauber says. "It's like a cooperative livingarrangement."

Meanwhile, the three other buildings thatcompose the Perelman Quad will also host a varietyof other services, including a 24-hour studyatrium, 12 music practice rooms, a cafe, a recitalroom and two student activity suites.

"Because there are over 300 student groups atPenn, we really wanted space that all groups coulduse," Gresh says. "This [arrangement] should alsohelp groups to interact more with each other."

The Impossible Dream

Penn doesn't hold a monopoly over ideas on howto best build a student center. At Harvard,however, those ideas can be put onhold--indefinitely.

Epps says he has long realized that a studentcenter is the best permanent solution to the spaceproblem. His vision--College Hall-is outlined in areport prepared by Coordinator of StudentActivities Susan T. Cooke in April 1998. Thereport offers a number of solutions-one of thembeing a centrally located student center.

"The College Hall would house student offices,seminar rooms, lecture rooms, interview rooms,rehearsal rooms, a forum for formal debate, artstudios and a small museum dedicated to thehistory of the College," the report reads.

According to the report, College Hall wouldalso meet the demand for rooms for moviescreenings, performance group rehearsals and paneldiscussions. Recognizing that building a studentcenter is not an overnight project, the reportalso proposes more immediate solutions to theproblem. It recommends designating more areas inYard buildings to certain activities.

The report also mentions a "PublicationsCenter," which would have space for at least 20campus publications.

"Instead of storing past issues under a bed andzip disks in a drawer [and] running from dorm roomto Science Center to lay out a magazine, studentscould rely on such a Center to take cake of eachstep of the publication process," the reportreads.

Although Epps did not originally include commonsocial space in his vision, he says he could addthat to College Hall.

"It wasn't included originally, but I certainlythink it could be, since that's the thing studentsseem to need and want most," he said.

Living with Loker

With little administrative response though tothe College Hall plans, Harvard students are leftwith Loker Commons.

On a typical Friday night at Loker, a couple ofstudents sit in the darkened television roomwatching "The Simpsons." Two more are playingnine-ball at one of the pool tables. A few othershuddle in the restaurant-style booths, working oncover letters and problem sets. The coffeehouseand fast food counter closed a half an hourbefore. The e-mail terminals are unoccupied. TheLED light board goes unwatched.

Hardly the social space of students' dreams,Loker is more commonly considered the a with fastfood. But given the administration's lack ofinterest in building a new student center, itseems as if Loker is all Harvard students canexpect.

Lewis said the size of Loker Commons is one ofthe roadblocks to making it more of a studentcenter.

"Loker is just not big enough, and that is noone's fault, since the size is determined by thefootprint of Memorial Hall," he said in an e-mailmessage.

Luck of the Draw

In the end though, Harvard students may justhave to count their blessings.

At least, that's what Yale students were sayingtwo years ago, when their request for anundergraduate student center went unanswered bythe administration.

As work on Yale's McDougal Graduate StudentCenter neared completion and Harvard, amid muchfanfare, opened Loker Commons, the Yale CollegeCouncil (YCC) prepared a plan that went above andbeyond Loker. It included office space for studentgroups, a grocery store, video rental and anewstand, as well as eateries and lounge space.

The Yale administration, however, decided notto fund the plan. In a response that has beenechoed in Harvard's administration, Yale said itsresidential colleges already serve as centers forstudent life.

But YCC Vice President Fawzi Jumean says theneed for a student center remains.

"In most cases, student organizations do nothave an office. Often students have to take theresponsibility and use their rooms," Jumean says.

According to Jumean, the YCC has repeatedlybrought the idea of a student center before theYale administration, only to receive negativeresponses based on lack of funds and space for anew building.

"Provided it's in a...central place on campus,a student center will be used by the students,"Jumean adds.

In the meantime, an e-mail survey conducted atBrown showed that 71 percent of the 1,200repondents wanted a separate student center,placing a premium on social and performance space.

According to UCS Vice President Jason Klein,Brown's administration has responded positively toa preliminary proposal submitted for a new center.

And like their peers at Brown, Harvard's Cohensays students must press for change.

"The main part of this really has to do withgetting the campus mobilized and showing [theadministration] that there is a need for a studentcenter," he says