Founded in September to protest the conservative bent of Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein '61 in teaching Social Analysis 10, "Principles of Economics," a class of over 900 people. The group distributed fliers in the Memorial Hall transept before "Ec 10" lectures in Sanders Theatre.
The Harvard Secular Society kicked off its year on November 2 with a debate entitled "Skeptics vs. 'The X-Files.'" Society members argued that shows like "The X-Files" portray science in a bad light while endorsing the supernatural--which society members, of course, lend no credibility.
The society kept a high profile with an anti-Friday the 13th demonstration and anti-Santa Claus speaker.
Bringing the Real World to Harvard
Issues unfamiliar to most students sparked some of the most visible group activity.
The Progressive Student labor Movement (PSLM), a group associated with Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), kicked off a year of activism by protesting human rights abuses by the popular Guess? clothing company in the first Science Center protest of many to follow. Further rallies followed as a PSLM offshoot, Students Against Sweatshops, brought to Harvard the national movement to make universities accountable for the conditions of workers who manufacture their apparel.
Members of PSLM, founded in 1997 by several students who had been active in the labor movement on an individual basis, would later join graduate students to fight for a living wage at Harvard. The Living Wage campaign has now enlisted the support of over 100 faculty members.
PSLM seemed omnipresent spring semester, staging protests almost every week and even taking over the stage at Junior Parents Weekend.
But student groups' focus on real world events maintained and grew wider still as the crisis in Kosovo reached a breaking point.
When NATO bombings began in early April, the Institute of Politics sponsored two panels in two days: Darryl C. Li '99 organized a vigil on the steps of Memorial Church, and the fledgling student group Impact, created to aid developing countries and to offer emergency relief, organized several benefit events.
Other students recently formed an Albanian Club to discuss ways to address the crisis and its aftermath, and Amnesty International has collected donations to send to Kosovar refugees.
Harvard responded to the labor agitators by year's end. The University took steps to initiate oversight of its apparel manufacturers and had formed a committee to determine the feasibility of a living wage.
"Without a doubt, [this year] was an unqualified success," said PSLM founding member Daniel R. Morgan '99. He cited as an accomplishment "the ability to run large-scale campaigns simultaneously and effectively, with enough people to get everything done."