According to Rabia S. Belt ’01-’03, former managing editor of Perspective, the original arrangement was for Demon to share the Salient’s office space in exchange for the Salient being able to use the Demon’s computer equipment—but once the Salient got new computer equipment, Demon was asked to move out.

Perspective can’t make use of the computer Demon leaves largely unused, as Perspective relies on PCs while Demon owns a Mac. That leaves Perspective with only two computers—one for layout, one for art design—to produce a 15-page paper.

“That’s really not that bad,” says former Perspective Managing Editor Alexandra Neuhaus-Follini ’04-’05. “People had to sit on the fridge or on broken computer monitors, on the floor or on the tables. We used to have crates and junk lying around.”

Future Prospects

But while groups like Demon and the Harvard Foundation get moved around from office to office or booted completely for the Yard, there is no entry into the market for premium office space—despite the constantly changing roster of active groups that need it.

Illingworth says the student groups that currently have space were simply “grandfathered in” to their offices.

“We don’t really have a process [for giving out offices] because it’s been so long since we’ve had space to give out,” Illingworth says.

He and Lewis say there is no hope in the near future that the problem will be alleviated.

Illingworth says the renovation of the Hasty Pudding building will not yield any extra office space, only meeting space and theater space.

As a result, only the four groups that currently inhabit the building—the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the Hasty Pudding Social Club, the Krokodiloes and the Radcliffe Pitches—will use the building after the renovations are completed.

If the renovations start in May, the building could be ready for use by January 2005, according to Illingworth.

But right now, Illingworth says the start date of the Pudding renovations depends on how fundraising for the project goes.

“Unless the fundraising process goes really fast, we won’t be starting this spring,” he says.

But Illingworth says he has great hopes that the MAC renovations—which will free up the room wasted by stadium seating for the pool—will provide new social and office space.

Illingworth says what the space is used for in the end depends on what newly appointed FAS Dean William C. Kirby thinks it would be best used for—and that still remains to be decided.