Bercu said that the new party hours represent a significant improvement over the 1 a.m. limit.
“Many parties climax toward the 1 [a.m.] hour. Having the parties end then just cuts it off at its peak,” Bercu said.
“That one extra hour I feel like makes a huge difference for students,” he said.
Bercu added that the 1 a.m. party hours had hurt Harvard’s reputation.
“Other schools, even of our caliber, don’t have to deal with the 1 a.m. cutoff. It hurts our standing with the other schools,” Bercu said. “Harvard likes to be competitive in academics and extracurriculars, and social life is another areas to be competitive in.”
Rashan Jibowu ’06 said at Friday’s City Step party in the Pfoho bell tower suite that the new party hours should help to normalize the Harvard social life.
“This makes us more like any other college,” he said.
THE PRICE OF PARTYING
A peripheral effect of the extended party hours is that parties will become more expensive, said Sloan J. Eddleston ’04, the co-host of Saturday’s Kirkland party.
“We have throwing parties pretty much down to a science now because we’ve been having about a party a month for a year now,” he said. “But the 2 [a.m.] party hours definitely revolutionize the way the whole thing works. There will be more people coming by for a longer amount of time.”
But Eddleston said the council’s party grants helped to make extended parties possible.
“The costs of an extra hour might be prohibitive for some, but that the UC has the party grant program to give us $100 helps with that. Because of that money, the costs of the party are really the extra costs of having fun,” he said.
Capone also said that the council funding would be crucial to encourage more partying.
“It really helps that the UC helps to pay for the party. It will let us do stuff like this much more often,” she said.
Mahan said that it might be possible for the council to increase the size of party grants next fall if the extended party hours become permanent and there are eight to 10 parties thrown per week.
—Staff writer Alan J. Tabak can be reached at tabak@fas.harvard.edu.