Anyone who has attempted to spend a night sharing another person’s bed here at Harvard has encountered one major obstacle. No, it’s not Harvard’s famed lack of a vibrant social scene or a dearth of viable partners—not only these, anyway—but rather a lack of space in the beds themselves. Perhaps it was Harvard’s intention to promote undergraduate chastity by supplying such inadequate sleeping arrangements; if it was, however, the college has failed. Students still pair up after parties and crash with their significant others—they just do so uncomfortably. Some have gone to great lengths to secure a comfortable night’s sleep. Harvard needs to recognize the needs of its students and satisfy them.

Being able to share a bed with someone is one of the major freedoms involved in life on campus. To that end, ingenious undergrads here have attempted to work around physical limitations. Regulation beds have been enlarged using cinderblocks and plywood. Second mattresses have been adjoined. Larger mattresses and even futons are bought in order to gain a little extra width. Clearly Harvard does not satisfy its students with its bedding.

What’s more, even this benign issue ends up—like too much of life here in Cambridge—a question of money. The wealthiest students can better afford a larger bed; less well-off students must suffer sleeplessly. Financial aid increases are all well and good, but economic injustice persists in our bedrooms. Why won’t The New York Times report on this?

Remember that mandatory freshman-year presentation on the importance of a good night’s sleep? If we’re going to sit through the College’s re-education campaign about the importance of rest, then at the very least we ought to receive the means to actually get some. It’s hard to sleep a full eight hours when you’re stacked firmly on top of someone else.

Of course, providing wider beds will incur some cost on the college, but the transition would be limited by demand and space. Some people might prefer to have a smaller bed, not anticipating any companions, and some rooms are too small to bear the spatial strain of a broader mattress. The potential costs of offering this necessary turnover might be less than we think.

Setting aside these social and academic justifications for this program, there remains one obvious and compelling argument for its implementation. Historically, Harvard College has scored remarkably poorly in student satisfaction polls. A prevailing mood of malaise in Cambridge hasn’t deterred new applicants, of course, and they’re still coming in droves. But if the food is lackluster, the housing sometimes derelict, and the faculty inaccessible, then at the very least we should come home to sleep on something wider than a plank.

Student-life administrators take notice: the ramifications of this relatively affordable concession could be enormous. The elimination of nighttime stress and discomfort would certainly bring about increased satisfaction and rest. In turn, students might remember their time haunting Harvard more fondly, and thus give more generously as alumni. Tossing these sorry excuses for sleeping arrangements is an investment in Harvard’s future—and this place needs some extra money.

But in the end, Harvard (with its enormous coffers) cannot really consider cost with regard to this proposal. If we take the College’s rhetoric seriously, then student satisfaction and eliminating economic discrimination should come before all else. Wider beds aren’t an unimaginable luxury; they’re a need waiting to be addressed. Their arrival would bring some joy to Cambridge’s cantankerous young people, and we wouldn’t have to go looking for special ultra-thin sheets, either.

Nathaniel C. Donoghue ’10, a Crimson editorial editor, is a classical history concentrator in Lowell House.