“Harvard’s philosophy is that there’s no reason why they should be creating these events,” he says. “More importantly, I don’t think they would be very popular if there are 30-to-35-year-old people creating opportunities for students.”

But McCambridge adds that having staff unencumbered by classwork dedicated to supporting the student planners does help.

“I admire the UC, Veritas, and the concert commission trying to supplement [student social life], but ultimately, I think it’s unrealistic to expect students to fill the role of full-time staff members,” he says.

Catherine C. Chang ’07, a member of the newly-formed Pub Nights Commission, agrees that the administration should play a specific, but limited, role.

“You don’t always want activities sponsored by the Dean necessarily, because if students want a better social life then they have to be the ones to take initiative and improve it,” Chang says. “The administration can provide the leeway and resources necessary to do it.”

The recent conflicted identity of Springfest perhaps best exemplifies the problems inherent in too much administrative involvement in social activities.

Originally conceived in 1994 as a springtime counterpart to Harvard-Yale weekend where undergraduates would put aside work to listen to music and hang out with friends, the event suffered from mediocre attendance and was in 2002 offered a life line in the form of thousands of dollars from the President’s Office.

But along with the money came evolving, and sometimes contradictory, ideas about the goals of the event, ultimately forcing it to lose its initial focus on undergraduates as it was expanded to include Harvard faculty, staff, and their families.

“Springfest has become the president’s little Kiddie Carnival, which is unfortunate,” Lowell House Committee (HoCo) Co-Chair Neil K. Mehta ’06 says. “If you think of [Brown and Dartmouth] everyone has something big that they look forward to. In the meantime, the big spring event is Springfest where everyone is usually disappointed about the lack of a raucous all-out party weekend that people really want and really need.”

DIFFERENT BRANDS OF FUN

But so far, the events sponsored by the administration seem to have focused on a niche independent from the heart of Harvard social life, which is mostly composed of smaller-scale events, from dorm room shindigs to final club gatherings to sweaty grindfests in the Currier Ten-Man suite. While not all students gravitate toward these parties, which often include alcohol, most undergraduates see these as the predominant option.

These more standard choices have not been the focal point of administrative concern, but it is unclear whether the events that are being expanded, like concerts and festivals, can compensate for a deficient day-to-day social scene.

“I think there’s a legitimate problem­ if it’s 11:30 on a Friday night, and you’re not 21 and you don’t want to be in a room party, there’s nothing for you to do,” says Tessa C. Petrich ’07, who sits on the Pub Night Commission.

Across the Ivy League, Harvard’s reliance on constrained dorm-centered social events seems to be unique.

Cornell’s Slope Day, when students celebrate the end of classes with a day of drinking and revelry, and Dartmouth’s Green Key weekend, a similarly debaucherous few days, are each one piece of a social fabric composed of large, open fraternity parties every night of every weekend.