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The Harvard Graduate Council planned upcoming social events and discussed high Harvard-Yale ticket prices during a meeting on Monday night.
During the meeting, HGC President Dalton Fogarty, a student at Harvard Business School criticized the disparities in ticket prices: while undergraduate students attend the game for free, graduate students must pay $150 per ticket.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily acceptable,” Fogarty said. “We are the majority of the students at Harvard, if you actually look at the numbers.”
Though some Harvard graduate schools’ student councils subsidize students’ tickets, this practice is not universal across all 12 graduate schools.
Fogarty also promoted an upcoming HBS tailgate and watch party for the Harvard-Yale Game. Tickets for the event are currently priced at $55.
“I’m very grateful that graduate students have come upon themselves, and have actually been really charitable, making sure that various students are able to attend events at a reasonable price,” he said.
The council also discussed a number of upcoming social events, including “Lectures That Last” — a friendly speech competition between professors from each graduate school — and a Valentine’s Day speed dating mixer.
“If you’re from X School and you never met someone, but you really want a partner from Y School, this would be a really good opportunity to do that,” Fogarty said.
Additionally, HGC announced a $3,000 fund for students to plan “welcome back” meals during the spring semester, with the stipulation that at least three schools are represented at each dinner.
During the meeting, representatives signed up to host gatherings as part of HGC’s “One Harvard” initiative — which allocates grants to individual graduate schools to host social events open to all graduate students. For example, Harvard Law School volunteered to host a trivia night and the Harvard Extension School will offer a paint and sip event.
Representatives discussed the creation of a public calendar, and the council formed a mini-committee to begin compiling dates and locations for events across the graduate schools.
Members also discussed efforts to increase student outreach, including through the HGC Instagram and email list. Currently, the HGC president can only send two emails to the entire graduate student body, at the beginning and end of each school year.
Benjamin Villa, an alum of the Graduate School of Design, gave the meeting’s keynote address. He promoted his recent app, “Weave Community” — which serves as a “Google maps” for social events, geotagging group activities such as running clubs or discussion groups.
“I think this answers a need that HGC has been sort of looking at for quite a while,” Fogarty said. “Basically what we face is 12 different schools that has messy systems.”
“There’s nothing that requires the schools’ ecosystems to actually talk to each other,” he added.
—Staff writer Maeve T. Brennan can be reached at maeve.brennan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @mtbrennan.
