Word: social
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Said co-chairman Lee D. Cramner III '88, "The biggest change we could possibly desire is having the Dudley dining hall open for dinner. Among transfer students, everyone eats lunch together at Dudley because that's where the social life...
...where "all Harvard men will stand equal." In a speech that year, Higginson chastised the final clubs, saying "Through the old clubs, with their small membership and high expenses, have crept in habits of exclusiveness and luxury which hurt our democratic university." Higginson's Union was to be a social center for all Harvard students, as opposed to the elitism which pervaded the social clubs...
Always a thrifty man, Higginson was determined to get the most for his money. The Union was to serve the dual purpose of a social center for students and a war memorial to the seven Harvard men who died in the Spanish Civil War of 1898. All seven are listed above the entrance to the main dining area, and seventh man on the list, Sherman Hoar (class of 1887), is thought to be the model for the bust of John Harvard that adorns the Union's mantlepiece...
Over the years, the dark and foreboding building has assumed various other uses, but Higginson's social center has rarely been one of them. Perhaps this is what the old Major had in mind when he exhorted Harvard students to "change it, develop it, do with it what you will, just so as you keep its character...
Frattarola also says he sees the need for a social gathering place for freshmen. "We have nowhere to go with friends during the day. We need a student center for the same reasons the upperclassmen need JCR's. We're so disjointed, there's no unity among the class," he says...