“It was really awesome to have somebody in a position of authority in the House who really had an appreciation of the social aspects of House life,” said Rachelle K. Gould ’03.

Gould cited last Friday’s Battle of the Bands in the Lowell House courtyard as an example of Poe’s commitment to improving House social life.

“I don’t know if we’re really the coolest House on campus, but he certainly helped up the ‘coolness’ quotient,” Gould said.

Timothy A. Wickland ’04 said he is upset Lowell will be losing Poe next year.

“I’m very ticked off he’s leaving,” Wickland said. “I’m much more sorry to see Marshall Poe go than Cornel West.”

In his message Sunday to the Lowell House e-mail list, Poe facetiously compared his departure to that of Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74, jokingly saying University President Lawrence H. Summers chastised him for participating in a rock band.

Poe said he does not yet have definite plans for next year.

“I think I may go write the great American novel...or I may go into Indy [car] racing,” Poe said.

—Staff writer Anne K. Kofol can be reached at kofol@fas.harvard.edu.