Fun Czar?

[Soxy]

Look out--here comes fun: Harvard Style...

 

Harvard Hires 'Fun Czar' to Spice Up Student Life

 

By Greg Frost

 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., (Reuters) - Harvard University students: overachieving, bookish bores or repressed party animals? A little of both, it seems.

 

Following complaints that it does little to promote campus social life, the Ivy League school has hired its first "fun czar" -- Zac Corker, a recent Harvard graduate whose job is to build community spirit and help stressed-out students unwind.

 

Corker knows a few things about kicking back. As an undergraduate, he helped organize numerous social events and put together a Web site -- www.hahvahdparties.com -- aimed at protecting students' "right to party."

 

Described by the student government chief as "a creative schemer," Corker has gone from student to administrator in a few short months. In exchange for room, board and a modest stipend, he now serves as the go-to guy for students who have ideas about social events but don't have the time or knowledge to navigate the school bureaucracy and bring them to fruition.

 

One week might see Corker putting the final touches on a speed-dating event; the next, he'll be working with students to organize a dodgeball tournament.

 

Corker's tenure will be short-lived: The 23-year-old has another job lined up with the Peace Corps later this year. Harvard plans to replace him, and Corker suggests it hire another recent graduate like himself.

 

"It's really important for the person who gets this job to know the kids who come up with the ideas, know what groups they're part of and have a relationship with them," he said.

 

FUN BUREAUCRACY?

 

The idea of a fun bureaucracy -- the official Harvard newspaper dubbed Corker the "fun czar" -- may seem like an oxymoron, but apparently at Harvard it is badly needed.

 

Harvard is a school where students tend to maximize every waking hour both in and out of the classroom and have little time for the kind of unstructured amusement that passes for fun in most other places.

 

"It's not that we have trouble unwinding. Part of it is our extracurricular culture; people are so committed to everything that's going on on campus," said Matt Mahan, outgoing president of the undergraduate student council.

 

"Harvard kids have planners that are booked solid from when they wake up to (when they) go to sleep, and that creates the perception that social life is somewhat lacking."

 

Judith Kidd, associate dean at Harvard, said academics alone aren't to blame for the perceived fun deficit on campus.

 

"Yes, the kids work very, very hard here. And they worked very, very hard before they got here in order to get here," she said. "It's not us: They arrived needing help having fun."

 

But it seems there are a few who know how to have a good time. Perhaps too good a time.

 

At a party to celebrate the annual Harvard-Yale football game in November, some two dozen fans were taken to hospital and treated for alcohol-related health problems in what one student newspaper called a "Bacchanalia."

 

Boston Police Capt. William Evans said he witnessed students chugging hard liquor, playing drinking games, urinating in public -- in short, all the "animal house" behavior commonly associated with lesser-caliber schools.

 

IVY LEAGUE PARTY ANIMALS

 

"It was a disgrace," Evans said. "I had officers come up to me and say they'd never seen an event so embarrassing.

 

"If they're going to party, that's one thing, but when they're drinking themselves into ambulances, it's a whole other thing. We're all under the impression that they're America's sharpest and brightest, but where's the common sense?"

 

Corker shouldered much of the task of preparing for the Harvard-Yale showdown, and he and school officials insisted the event was a success despite the public drunkenness.

 

Kidd speculated that the festivities came under closer scrutiny because of the fatal riots that broke out last year following championships by the New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox sports teams.

 

Thousands of drunken students from Boston-area universities took part in the riots, and police have been cracking down on underage and unsafe drinking ever since.

 

"In the past, from what I understand, the Harvard-Yale game didn't particularly reach the radar screen of police, and now it's there," she said.

 

Kidd also said she and her staff paid more attention to the Harvard-Yale game because of well-publicized alcohol-related tragedies. Several students have died of alcohol poisoning at U.S. campuses since the start of the academic year.

 

"Harvard is not immune to some of the problems other campuses have among a very small percentage of students," she said.

[Texsox]

Damn I want that job

[Goldmember]

it's van wilder!

[SuperSteve]

I wonder why we don't have a fun czar here at State?