Harvard Queer Students and Allies (QSA)

Antonio Iglesias, class of 2010
Adams House, Earth and Planetary Sciences Concentrator

There are few things in life better than becoming comfortable with yourself.  As a gay, male student who once struggled with his sexual identity, the Harvard community, particularly, the Harvard Queer Students and Allies (QSA), aided in my personal transition from questioning and confused to confident and comfortable, and has become my second family.  The QSA creates a supportive community through celebrations of queer culture such as an annual drag night, dance/mixers, and guest speakers and discussion panels on the intersectionality between sexual orientation and other social constructions.

My transformation happened during freshman year.  Now a senior, I have been the treasurer of the QSA for the past two years.  As much as I have grown since my first year, more so have I seen the organization grow.  The main development I have seen is acknowledgment of the real need for inclusivity. In a society concerned with queer rights, the needs of gay and lesbian individuals tend to dominate the conversation, yet we know that there are also many other individuals who are questioning their sexual identities and seeking the comfort that I gained a few years ago   Thus, whether you identify as transgender, intersexual, bisexual, gender queer, (and the list goes on and on), the QSA strives to offer all of these different identities the resources and confidence to live happy, secure lives.

All in all, what I’ve enjoyed most about being a member of the QSA and Harvard in general is that I have never been a part of a more accepting community. This is not just limited to acceptance of another’s sexual identity, but acceptance of every individual for every facet of their identity.  Such an open environment truly promotes a healthy dialogue between students from astoundingly different backgrounds and encourages us to mature and become wiser people than we were when we first set foot on campus.

The Harvard Showroom is open

Maxwell L. Child, class of 2010

Former president of the Harvard Crimson

      My first big feature for the Harvard Crimson required serious manpower to put together.  As a freshly-minted news reporter covering the faculty, I wanted to get something big.  Something exciting. Something Harvard’s professors would be embarrassed to reveal to the public.  

      I wanted to know which cars Cambridge’s biggest brains drove.

      I was able to harness the efforts of 20 or so writers who were trying to get elected—“compers” in Crimson lingo—to take on my pet project.  I drew up huge e-mail lists of professors from all departments for them to blitz until we got the information we needed.  I had them searching across campus for Porsches with Harvard permits.  We mounted the biggest Crimson investigative effort since the election of President Faust.

      In the end, operation “Crimson Showroom” was a success.  We were able to sniff out a few of the luxury-car owners (BMWs only, sadly, the Porsches remained a mystery). Renowned professors Mankiw (economics) and Mansfield (government) gave me up-close-and-personal access to their distinctive rides. Green-friendly Prius driving profs and a Suburban fan gave impassioned defenses of their auto choices.  And, surprisingly, our survey found that the most popular faculty car was the sensible, midrange Subaru Forrester.  

      While my automobile exposé was hardly Woodward and Bernstein material, the fun I had reporting and writing it pulled me further into the hard-working and high-spirited world that is The Crimson.  I was hooked on the camaraderie of the building, and stuck around for three-and-a-half years.  A number of the aspiring editors I conscripted to help me with that story are great friends of mine today.   

      My experience writing the story exemplified two opportunities ever-available at The Crimson—the chance to make friends and to bother incredibly important people with trivial matters.  I was lucky enough to get to do both a number of times at The Crimson, and I hope prospective writers, designers, photographers, and businesspeople make sure to factor the options at 14 Plympton in their college decision.

Check out Max’s feature “The Harvard Showroom is open” at http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/11/13/the-harvard-showroom-is-open-what/

All for Fun, and Fun for All

James McFadden ‘10

Being a part of the College Events Board has been an incredible part of my time at Harvard. I was one of those people in high school in charge of coming up with dance themes, fundraising drives, pep rallies, and spirit weeks, and the CEB is basically a well-funded group of like-minded people that take event planning to the next level. Planning events for a campus of 6,000 undergraduates is no easy task, but seeing our projects come together makes it all worth it.

The board is responsible for planning all major campus-wide events and initiatives (rather than just for particular houses or student groups), and our three largest events each year are a Welcome Back party, the Harvard-Yale Pep Rally, and Yardfest.

The welcome back event is held during the first week of school each September in Harvard Yard. In the past, this has taken the form of a luau, carnival, summer camp, etc. and its mission is to bring new students and returning upperclassmen all together in one place for free, relaxed fun. Barbeque food, fire pits, games, performers, and rides are just some of the things we as the CEB work to coordinate at the event.

The second main event of the year is the Harvard-Yale Pep Rally. This event takes place right at the John Harvard Statue in the Yard the Thursday night in November before the football team’s historic rivalry game against Yale. This past year we got in touch with several on-campus performing groups and put together a show filled with Harvard talent, inter-athletic eating competitions, and lights and fog, all culminating in a pre-victory speech from the football team itself.

Our final “signature” event is a spring concert in the Yard known as Yardfest. As the weather gets warm and the end of the year rolls around, we invite a popular artist or two to perform on the steps of Memorial Church. Tire swings abound and HUDS (Harvard University Dining Services) fires up their grills to make for one last chill event of the year where the whole campus can come together for an afternoon of music and fun at the center of campus.

In addition to these “big three” events, we are constantly brainstorming new ideas and initiatives that take place throughout the entire school year. We’ve recently begun a new trend of screening free new-release movies in the Harvard Square movie theater twice a year and have sponsored music mash-up contests for budding DJs on campus. The board itself is only a few years old, so the possibilities for cool new events are endless.

Being on the board itself is beyond fun in its own right. The 18 of us have become a close group of friends and my fellow CEB-ers are some of the most fun people I’ve ever met. A lot of my home friends would laugh at the idea that Harvard can be a “fun” place, but my experience on the CEB, the people I’ve met through it, and our successful events have really proven otherwise.

In some late-breaking exciting news, we’ve just announced this year’s lineup of artists to perform on April 18th: Kid Cudi, Wale, and Patrick Park. Everyone on campus is amped up for the spring show, and for us that means one thing: mission accomplished.