The Harvard Crimson - Volume CXLVI, No. 41

The Harvard Crimson THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873 | VOLUME CXLVI, NO. 41 | CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS | FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2019

EDITORIAL PAGE 4

NEWS PAGE 3

SPORTS PAGE 6

Harvard should clarify disciplinary probation measures to students.

Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State spoke on diplomacy at the IOP.

Harvard women’s fencing places fourth in Cleveland.

Guards 4.5 Percent of Applicants Accepted to Harvard Upset With Class of 2023 Union

By CAMILLE G. CALDERA and SAHAR M. MOHAMMADZADEH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard Acceptance Rate

22%

Overall Admit Rate

20%

18.2%

18%

*Harvard eliminated early admission for the Class of 2012 but resumed for the Class of 2016

18.2%

16.5%

16%

Securitas guards allege poor representation

CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Several current and former security guards at Harvard allege that their union, 32BJ Service Employees International Union, has not adequately represented them in employer disputes, citing poor communication and confidentiality breaches.

Their employer, Securitas North America, is contracted

by Harvard to handle most of its security guard operations. Harvard’s Securitas guards are represented by 32BJ SEIU. Stanley Demesyeux, a security guard at Harvard Medical School until November 2015, said that after filing a grievance with 32BJ SEIU against Securitas, there was “a lot of miscommunication” with Ingrid I. Nava, the union attorney representing him in the arbitration.

When Nava went on leave during the arbitration process, Demesyeux said he was not notified until he attempted to reach out to her. Similarly, he said he only learned that a different attorney was arbitrating the case after he reached out again to Nava.

Demesyeux ultimately lost his grievance arbitration against Securitas, which he said he found out only after calling the union attorney roughly a week after the union had received the verdict.

“I had to chase down the union lawyer to find out what’s going on,” Demesyeux said.

Roxana Rivera, vice president of 32BJ SEIU, wrote in an emailed statement that the union takes arbitration cases “very seriously.”

“As we advocate for a higher standard of living for Harvard’s workforce, we take cases involving individual members very seriously, using the full force of our contract to conduct prompt and thorough

Acceptance Rate

By JAMES S. BIKALES and RUOQI ZHANG

14.8%

14.5%

14%

Early Action

14.5%

13.4%

13.4%

12% 10% 8% 6%

7.0%

6.9%

6.2%

5.9%

5.9%

5.8%

5.3%

5.22%

5.2%

4.59%

4.50%

Overall

4%

4.50%

2% 0%

A record-low 4.50 percent of applicants to Harvard College received admissions offers to the Class of 2023, with 1,950 of 43,330 candidates securing places in the class.

The College notified 1,015 students of their acceptances in the regular decision cycle at 7 p.m. Thursday evening. They join 935 applicants admitted through the College’s early action program in December.

This year’s admissions rate is the lowest in College history, down from 4.59 percent last year. This year marks the fifth consecutive application cycle in which the percentage of accepted applicants has decreased.

The total number of admitted students in the Class of 2023 has also decreased slightly from last year’s 1,962.

“The Class of 2023 is remarkably accomplished and promising by any standard,” Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said in a press release Thursday.

“Reading their applications and ­

Early Action Admit Rate

21.0%

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 Incoming Class Year

MATTHEW J. TYLER—CRIMSON DESIGNER

Quincy Residents Dominate List of Harvard Fellowship Recipients Quincy residents received the Rhodes and Marshall at high rates

By SHERA S. AVI-YONAH and DELANO R. FRANKLIN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Earlier this year, Quincy House tutor Adam M. Mastroianni heard something strange. A former tutor pointed out that the House had produced Rhodes and Marshall scholars almost every year for the past decade — a number that dwarfed other houses’ totals.

Mastroianni and his four colleagues asked the College office that oversees fellowships — the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships — for the data. URAF complied, sending them the lengthy list of winners.

“We looked at them and we

were like, wow, yes, that is indeed impressive,” Quincy tutor Anil Mundra said. “It seems very high, like, per capita. It seems not to be accounted for by the fact that Quincy is a large house.”

Over the past 10 years, 60 Harvard College graduates have received United States Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. Nineteen of those students lived in Quincy House, a number more than double the next highest number of winners from a single house.

From 2010 to 2019, the distribution of Rhodes and Marshall winners has heavily favored two of Harvard’s 12 upperclassman Houses — Quincy, home to 19 winners, and Lowell, home

to nine. By contrast, Adams and Currier graduated just two winners each over the same period.

The Rhodes and Marshall are two prestigious and highly selective fellowships that provide students with the opportunity to pursue postgraduate degrees at British universities. More than 2,500 students across the country sought an endorsement from their college for the Rhodes in 2018, and more than 1,000 applied for the Marshall.

Harvard students compete against students throughout the country each year for these and numerous other fellowships. Each house has

SEE FELLOWSHIPS PAGE 3 KAI R. MCNAMEE—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

SEE UNION PAGE 5

getting to know these individuals through their unique experiences and talents inspires great confidence for the future of Harvard College and our society.”

The admitted class includes six veterans and 41 students who indicated an interest in ROTC, an increase from previous years, according to Fitzsimmons. In comparison, the Class of 2022 included just one veteran and 30 students interested in ROTC. “It’s been a priority, but we haven’t had as much success as we had this year,” Fitzsimmons said in an interview Thursday morning. “This is a significant increase.”

In addition, 650 admitted students — roughly a third of the class — indicated interest in pursuing community service as an extracurricular activity.

“Community service and public service is really part of Harvard’s foundational identity. It’s who we are,” Fitzsimmons said. “More people seem to be interested in making a difference in terms of public ser-

SEE ADMISSIONS PAGE 5

Coalition Endorses Board Hopefuls

By ALEXANDRA A. CHAIDEZ and AIDAN F. RYAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard — an alumni group focused on increasing diversity at Harvard — endorsed seven candidates in this year’s Board of Overseers election and six candidates in the race for an elected director position on the board of the Harvard Alumni Association Thursday.

The Coalition formed in 2016 in response to a controversial outsider ticket in that year’s Board of Overseers election.

The ticket ran on a contentious platform of abolishing tuition and increasing transparency in the undergraduate admissions

SEE COALITION PAGE 5

Former Ambassador Elevates Diplomacy

By AMY Y. LI CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Former United States Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns and former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Catherine M. Russell discussed the importance of diplomacy in the present political climate at the Harvard Kennedy School Thursday.

Harvard Kennedy School professor Graham T. Allison ’62 moderated the event, which was co-sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The three discussed topics ranging from challenges facing the State Department today to Burns’s and Russell’s careers as ambassadors for the United States.

During the event, Burns — who served as a diplomat in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations — characterized the current state of international relations as one in which “the U.S. is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical block.”

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Harvard Today 2

Burns, however, said he believes the U.S. had a unique advantage in dealing with global issues such as climate change and the rise of technology. “I would still argue the U.S. still has a better hand to play than any of our major rivals, and I mean that not just in economic leverage and military leverage, but our capacity to draw on alliances and to mobilize coalitions of countries to deal with these kind of problems,” he said.

Burns also said he believes diplomacy has been treated as “an under-resourced afterthought” in recent decades, especially with the emphasis on “military and intelligence tools” after 9/11. He added that he thinks the current U.S. administration has made the current state of diplomacy “infinitely worse” at a time when diplomacy is needed most. “$40 billion was proposed for the State Department for all of our diplomats overseas and for all of our foreign assistance

SEE DIPLOMACY PAGE 5

News 3

Editorial 4

Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns speaks about his time serving as a diplomat at the IOP alongside Professor of Government Graham Allison, left, and IOP Resident Fellow Catherine Russell, right, Thursday at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. AMY Y. LI—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

Sports 6

TODAY’S FORECAST

RAINY High: 56 Low: 44

VISIT THECRIMSON.COM. FOLLOW @THECRIMSON ON TWITTER.

come to mid-comp

THE HARVARD CRIMSON |

MARCH 29, 2019

PAGE 2

HARVARD TODAY

For Lunch Red’s Best Fresh Catch Harissa Chicken Portobello Mushroom with Quinoa Stuffing

For Dinner Chicken Francias Chinese Style Pork Chops Seitan Pepper Sizzle

TODAY’S EVENTS Harvard College Opera Recital 7:30-9 p.m.

IN THE REAL WORLD

In the mood for some nice music to start off your weekend? Join the Harvard College Opera in the Leverett Library Theater for a selection of operatic work, with instrumentalists and singers side by side. A reception will follow the performance.

Wells Fargo CEO to Step Down

Timothy “Tim” J. Sloan, CEO of Wells Fargo, plans to step down at the end of June amid recent scandals as well as pressure from regulators and lawmakers to get the bank’s problems under control. His retirement is meant to give rise to new leadership and refresh Wells Fargo’s damaged reputation.

Social Justice: A Conversation 6-7:30 p.m.

Join in a conversation about community activism and criminal justice between Emerald Garner, Eric Garner’s daughter, former National Basketball Association player Dedrick “Etan” Thomas, and Professor Jonathan L. Walton. Performing groups Lincoln Hart+ MJangles and 21 Colorful Crimson will be featured.

Harvard College Esports Association: Gaming in the SOCH 7p.m.-12a.m.

Want some pizza, refreshments, and a good game of “Super Smash Bros.”?

Play some games with the Harvard College Esports Association in Student Organization Center at Hilles 105 from 7 p.m. to midnight. Feel free to bring your own setups, but many will already be available for a fun night!

Facebook Accused of Ad Discrimination Attendees at the Institute of Politics listen to Ambassador William J. Burns speak about his experiences in diplomacy Thursday evening. AMY Y. LI—CRIMSON STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

DAILY BRIEFING

The Department of Housing and Urban Development charged Facebook with unlawful discrimination, stating the company allowed real estate companies to target customers based on identifying characteristics, such as race and religion. Changes to Facebook’s ad-buying services may soon ban the targeted ads that make Facebook so effective for companies.

Quincy House has seen a disproportionate number of Rhodes and Marshall scholars in the past decade. Quincy residents made up nearly a third of total Rhodes and Marshall scholarship recipients from the College. In other news, the College’s acceptance rate dipped again to a record-low 4.5 percent with 1,950 of 43,440 candidates receiving admissions offers Thursday evening.

AROUND THE IVIES YALE

Yale sent admission decisions to prospective students yesterday, after an admissions cycle with a record number of applications and an acceptance rate of 5.91 percent, according to the Yale Daily News. The size of Yale’s Class of 2023 has also expanded for the third time in recent years, and the college offered 984 applicants spots on the waitlist as well.

PRINCETON

Princeton accepted 1,152 students to its Class of 2023 yesterday, the Daily Princetonian reported.

Including the 743 students accepted through early action, the group of admitted students represents 5.77 percent of the total applicant pool. For the complete pool of applicants, Princeton saw a 7.3 percent decrease in applicants this year.

COLUMBIA

Columbia College and the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Sciences both announced a new record low admission rate this application cycle, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported. Both schools accepted 5.1 percent of their applicants from a pool of individuals that increased by more than 2000 individuals compared to last year. Over the past five years, Columbia has seen a steady decline in its acceptance rate.

THE UNIVERSITY DAILY, EST. 1873

The Harvard Crimson Kristine E. Guillaume President Angela N. Fu Managing Editor Charlie B. Zhu Business Manager

STAFF FOR THIS ISSUE

Associate Managing Editor Jamie D. Halper ’20

Arts Chairs Kaylee S. Kim ’20 Caroline A. Tsai ’20

Design Chairs Elena M. Ramos ’20 Akhil S. Waghmare ’20

Associate Business Manager Amy E. Zhou ’20

FM Chairs Norah M. Murphy ’20 Abigail L. Simon ’20

Multimedia Chairs Kathryn S. Kuhar ’20 Kai R. McNamee ’21

Editorial Chairs Jessenia N. Class ’20 Robert Miranda ’20

Blog Chairs Lorenzo F. Manuali ’21 Trula J. Rael ’21

Technology Chairs Nenya A. Edjah ’20 Theodore T. Liu ’20

Sports Chairs Joseph W. Minatel ’21 Henry Zhu ’20

Copyright 2019, The Harvard Crimson (USPS 236-560). No articles, editorials, cartoons or any part thereof appearing in The Crimson may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the President. The Associated Press holds the right to reprint any materials published in The Crimson. The Crimson is a non-profit, independent corporation, founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. Second-class postage paid in Boston, Massachusetts. Published Monday through Friday except holidays and during vacations, three times weekly during reading and exam periods by The Harvard Crimson Inc., 14 Plympton St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138 Weather icons made by Freepik, Yannick, Situ Herrera, OCHA, SimpleIcon, Catalin Fertu from flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0.

Night Editor Michael E. Xie ’20 Assistant Night Editors Bridger J. Gordon ’22 Olivia C. Scott ’21 Story Editors Caroline S. Engelmeyer ’20 Angela N. Fu ’20 Kristine E Guillaume ’20 Jamie D. Halper ’20 Luke W. Xu ’20

Design Editor Elena M. Ramos ’20 Matthew J. Tyler ’22 Photo Editor Kathryn S. Kuhar ’20 Editorial Editor Elijah T. Ezeji-Okoye ’20 Sports Editor Mohamed Ahmed ’22

CORRECTIONS The Harvard Crimson is committed to accuracy in its reporting. Factual errors are corrected promptly on this page. Readers with information about errors are asked to e-mail the managing editor at managingeditor@thecrimson.com.

PAGE 3

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 29, 2018

Salt & Olive To Occupy Garage Vacancy

By ELLEN M. BURSTEIN and SYDNIE M. COBB

Tuition Continues to Rise for 2019-20

CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

By CAMILLE G. CALDERA and SAHAR M. MOHAMMADZADEH

Salt & Olive Market will open on April 1 and fill the vacancy left by the departure of Starbucks earlier this year.

The market offers its patrons speciality foodstuffs characteristic of European cuisines, including olive oil, cheese and charcuterie, fresh pasta and sauces, beer and wine, and organic spices and teas.

Salt & Olive is not a store new to Harvard Square — it was previously located a few blocks down the road on Massachusetts Avenue.

The store’s opening takes place as several restaurants frequented by college students — including Chipotle, Sweet Bakery, and Crema Café — have closed their doors in recent months.

Students looking to hone their culinary skills can also take advantage of Salt & Olive’s year-round cooking classes.

Mary Taylor, Salt & Olive’s founder and a specialist in olive oil tasting, said she believes that her store will be the perfect addition to the Garage’s diverse food offerings.

“The Garage is a vibrant, international, and popular destination for students, tourists, and folks who live and work in the area,” Taylor said.

CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

A new sign along Mt. Auburn St. indicates the new opening of Salt and Olive, a Cambridge-based oil, spice, and tea company. JONATHAN G. YUAN—CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

“I think Salt & Olive Market fits beautifully into this diverse space. We have organic spices, salts, teas, and olive oils from around the world.”

Some students said the new store could be an exciting replacement for a beloved landmark.

Greg B. Cain ’22, a contributing writer to The Crimson, said he can foresee the store being useful but that it may fall outside of the stores frequented by college students.

“I think it’s a great idea, and

you know if I was cooking I’d want the best ingredients.

But I imagine given that it’s so niche, it might be a higher-end sort of thing, and in the interest of a college student’s budget, it might not be a great fit for me,” Cain said.

“In a way, I think it’s somewhat of an upgrade given that there’s already another Starbucks in the Square, and there’s nothing too original about having a Starbucks,” he added.

Lauren A. Tucker ’22 likewise said she mourned the loss

of her study spot but said she is interested in Salt & Olive’s wares.

Tucker said she is hesitant about the new store because she had viewed the Starbucks location as “kind of cozy and tucked away.”

“I don’t know how practical that’ll be for Harvard students, and I’ll miss the study spot, but I guess it’s kind of cool,” Tucker said. ellen.burstein@thecrimson.com sydnie.cobb@thecrimson.com

FELLOWSHIPS FROM PAGE 1

Quincy Leads Rhodes, Marshall Winners 20

19

Marshall and Rhodes Scholars by House

Number of Marshall and Rhodes Scholars

18 16 14 12 10

9

8 6

6

4

4

4

4 3

2

2

2

2

2

r ie rr Cu t bo Ca s m da A er h at M ett r ve Le er r st e m un D hei rz p fo P hro t in W nd a kl ir K t io El ll e w Lo y nc

ui

Q

0

3

House

between three and six residential tutors specifically tasked with guiding candidates through the two-part application process. Though the College provides fellowship tutors with resources, it does not mandate a single approach and advising strategy varies from house to house.

First, applicants must seek the College’s endorsement. If successful, thet then enter the regional Rhodes and Marshall selection pools and compete against students from other colleges. Each year, the Rhodes names 32 scholarship recipients, and the Marshall names up to 40. At least one Quincy student won a Rhodes or Marshall scholarship in nine out of the past 10 years. Quincy students and tutors say their House’s success with the Rhodes, Marshall, and other selective fellowships comes from an advising culture tailored to the academic and personal interests of applicants.

A HISTORY OF SUCCESS

Though each House is home to several tutors, Quincy staff say their team has developed a particularly effective and institutionalized approach to fellowship advising.

Mastroianni and Mundra said Quincy’s fellowship advising system has several stages, outlined in an internal guide Mundra is currently compiling. Each spring, the team contacts every student above a certain gradepoint average to encourage them to attend an informational session about fellowships.

If they decide to apply for a fellowship, Quincy students receive individual advising from a tutor with relevant experience and undergo several mock interviews, often run by past Rhodes winners. Mastroianni and Mundra said that, if they believe none of the tutors is the best fit for a student, they put out a call to the

House’s entire staff to find the right match. Mundra said Quincy tutors’ focus on building personal relationships with fellowship applicants and matching them with experienced tutors who have previously won fellowships are part of what makes for successful advising.

“We have fellowships winners on the advising team, people who know what they’re doing,” Mundra said. “But yeah, we’re but we’re just making it up. We don’t really get trained.”

He also pointed to the size of the House’s fellowship team — five tutors — and the tutors’ focus on reading personal statements and conducting mock interviews as possible factors in Quincy graduates’ disproportionate success.

“I think it definitely helps to have another pair of eyes on on your application,” Mundra said. “And it definitely helps to do mock interviews. We hear that from students over and over again, that people going in are just like, they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.”

Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana said in an interview earlier this month that tutor advising and student initiative both play major roles in whether students are successful in their bids for postgraduate fellowships.

“The effectiveness of fellowships then, in part, depends on students actively engaging, but also on advising and it can come in a variety of different forms — a combination of faculty advising, to tutor advising, faculty dean advising, staff acting as advisors to sort of inform students about this,” Khurana said.

Some Quincy affiliates also said the House’s history of success stems from the work of past tutors. Mastroianni and Elizabeth C. Keto ’18, a Marshall Scholar and former Crim-

MATTHEW J. TYLER—CRIMSON DESIGNER

son editor, both said the work of former Quincy tutor Lindsey V. Aakre helped establish a culture of active advising and extensive support within the House.

“I felt that Quincy’s fellowship advising was exceptional,” Keto wrote in an email. “I am still so grateful for all the thought and care that our fellowships tutor, Lindsey Aakre, put into supporting my application.”

Mastroianni, a Rhodes winner, said his team has not come up with a clear explanation for why Quincy has done so well.

“We know what we do. We don’t really know what other Houses do.” he said. “It’s hard for me to say, ‘this is why it’s different here.’”

‘DIFFERENT, DEPENDING ON THE HOUSE’

Though tutors from other Houses do many of the same things as Quincy’s — emailing star students, conducting mock interviews, and reading statements — the number of fellowships tutors is at faculty deans’ discretion and varies between houses. Cabot has three resident tutors on its fellowships team and Mather and Kirkland each have six. Some houses do not email all students above a certain gradepoint average, and others conduct only one mock interview.

Outside the houses, the College provides centralized resources for fellowship applicants. URAF supplies information and advising related to both internal fellowships and certain external programs. The office also runs five to six training sessions each year to keep tutors up-to-date on fellowships scheduling, according to Dunster House fellowship tutor Andrew A. Chael.

“There is a start-of-year session that most fellowships tutors attend; this runs for several hours and lays out the responsi-

bilities of the role and the schedule for the most prominent national and Harvard-run fellowships,” Chael wrote in an email.

Chael also wrote he believes URAF could provide more assistance to tutors in informing students of deadlines and workshopping personal statements.

“It would be extremely helpful if URAF could send us regular emails to forward to the house list to remind students of upcoming opportunities and how to reach out to us and to URAF for advising,” he wrote, “It would also be helpful if URAF provided training on how to mentor students oneon-one in writing fellowships essays.”

URAF director Gregory A. Llacer wrote in an email that while his office does occasionally address issues with fellowship applications, the advising process is mostly an in-house matter.

“House tutor practices, broadly defined, are the province of Faculty Deans, and fellowships is one of many responsibilities that the Deans delegate among their tutors,” Llacer wrote. “Of course, if there is a specific matter brought to our attention that needs to be addressed, we respond. However, such instances are infrequent anomalies.”

Lowell fellowships co-chair Charlie S. Tyson wrote in an email that — much like Quincy’s — his House’s system is largely based on internal training rather than College resources.

“Inside the house, best practices for advising, mentoring, and preparing students for interviews are informally passed down across the generations of fellowships tutors,” he wrote.

Despite the low number of successful applicants in some houses, fellowship winners and tutors say they believe the system should stay within the residential realm. Marshall winner Julius G. Bright Ross ’17 — one of just two Rhodes or Marshall winners from Adams in the past decade — said he is aware of discrepancies between houses.

“I’m aware that it is different, depending on the house,” he said. “I can’t speak to any other people in particular, but I think that insurance on a kind of equity in the process would probably be a good idea.”

Still, Ross said he believes any changes to the fellowship system should keep advising within the houses.

“The people that I was working with were people that knew me from outside the application process, and I think that’s something that would be very difficult to centralize,” he said. “My fellowships advisor was someone that I had dinner with regularly before the fellowship process. And so when it came time to actually sit down and put together my applications, she already had the right questions.” shera.avi-yonah@thecrimson.com delano.franklin@thecrimson.com

The total cost of attending Harvard College — including tuition, fees, room, and board — will increase by 3 percent, to $69,607, for the 2019-2020 academic year, the College announced in a press release Thursday evening.

That increase marks a $2,027 rise from the 2018-2019 school year cost of attendance of $67,580.

This is the second year in a row that the cost of enrollment at the College has risen by 3 percent, outpacing the rate of inflation in both years.

The average rate of inflation in 2018 was 2.54 percent and the average inflation rate so far in 2019 has been 2.44 percent.

The average cost of attendance for an undergraduate at

Harvard costs the same or less for 90 percent of American families than in-state public universities.

Jake Kaufmann ‘93 Director of Financial Aid

an American four-year private university for the 2018-2019 school year is $46,680, according to the College Board.

The average total cost of enrollment at a four-year, in-state public university for the year is $21,370.

The rise in “sticker price” for the College is consistent with a decades-long trend of annual increases.

Between 1998 and 2015, the inflation-adjusted cost of a Harvard education rose 31 percent, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2015.

The cost of attending Harvard first topped $40,000 in 2005.

It exceeded $50,000 in 2010 and $60,000 in 2015.

In 2017, the cost of attendance rose by 4.1 percent — the largest percent increase of the decade.

Amidst these rising costs, the College is embarking on its 15th year of the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative to remove economic barriers for admitted students who want to attend Harvard.

The program allows students from low-income backgrounds — undergraduates whose family incomes are $65,000 or less — to attend the College at no additional fee.

Those students each also receive a $2,000 start-up grant to help offset move-in costs and other expenses.

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said in an interview Thursday that he thinks HFAI is “a great thing for the students, a great thing for Harvard,” especially because the program applies to international students as well as those who hail from the United States.

Projections from the Financial Aid Office suggest more than half of the Class of 2023 will receive some form of needbased financial aid and 20 percent of the class will not be required to contribute to the cost of attendance.

“Harvard costs the same or less for 90 percent of American families than in-state public universities,” Director of Financial Aid Jake Kaufmann ’93 said in a press release Thursday.

HFAI has awarded over $2 billion in grant aid to undergraduates since 2005.

The undergraduate financial aid award budget has increased in recent years by 138 percent, from $80 million in 2005 to more than $191 million in 2018, though the Harvard Gazette, the had reported in 2018 that the College would spend more than $195 million on financial aid this year. camille.caldera@thecrimson.com. sahar.mohammadzadeh@thecrimson.com

From the Law School to Longwood.

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THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 29, 2019

PAGE 4

EDITORIAL THE CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD

COLUMN

The Problem with Probation

The Border Wall is Already Built

P

robation continues to be one of Harvard’s most obscure administrative procedures. Earlier this month, Harvard Radio Broadcasting — the student radio station commonly known as WHRB — experienced firsthand this ongoing lack of clarity. After inviting rapper Lil Pump — a self-proclaimed “Harverd Dropout” — to speak at the station’s office in Pennypacker Hall in February, a College administrator threatened to place WHRB on “administrative probation,” but the group reportedly never received official confirmation of being placed on probation. Despite the threat, as it stands, WHRB retains its recognized status and all privileges such status entails.

Social spaces that promote and cultivate a culture of inclusivity on this campus are essential to student life. To that end, we are supportive of WHRB, as inviting Lil Pump to campus is exactly the type of event that enriches the cultural, social, and organizational experiences students are able to have during their time at Harvard.

Even so, to the extent that WHRB violated policies for student organizations, it was appropriate for the College to issue a warning.

WHRB and the College’s interactions on this matter represent an instance of the disciplinary procedure functioning as intended.

The station was notified of policy violations without suffering any severe consequences associated with probation.

However, that is not to say the procedures functioned perfectly. The warning could have been delivered in a way that fostered less uncertainty around the group’s status. The College must work to

develop and publicize a better institutionalized process for issuing warnings for violations that do not merit probation but are nonetheless consistent with the rules governing the conduct of student organizations.

The College’s policies mention probation as a punishment for violations and the possibility of warnings of potential future probation for less severe infractions.

This distinction is admirable in its understanding of the fact that not all policy infractions are created equal. But that same understanding cries out for a better system to help ensure that offending organizations are treated fairly and in

The College must work to develop and publicize a better institutionalized process for issuing warnings for violations that do not merit probation but are nonetheless consistent with the rules governing the conduct of student organizations. transparent fashion.

The College should work to formalize the warning process as a pre-probationary punishment or a notification of infractions so incidents in the future do not provoke uncertainty about the status of organizations like WHRB. Despite the lack of clarity in the rules, in this specific case we commend both WHRB and the College for appearing to

resolve it in a relatively timely manner and in a way that didn’t prolong uncertainty about the radio station’s status. In the future, we continue to hope that the College will better clarify its standards for probation and other less severe punitive measures.

Of course, when we think of probation, we cannot help also thinking of Harvard College Faith and Action, which was placed on “administrative probation” last year for pressuring a student to step down from her leadership role due to her choice to date another woman. HCFA remains the only College organization to receive the sanction of “administrative probation.” Clearly, the respective actions of WHRB and HCFA are not at all comparable: WHRB continues to demonstrate inclusivity and positive extracurricular leadership on campus. Yet the College’s treatment of HCFA is a prime example of how opaque the College has been with its disciplinary policies for recognized student organizations.

Ultimately, if probation and pre-probation warnings are tools the College is using to discipline organizations, the practical effects of probation and other disciplinary measures should be made clear to students involved in these organizations.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

Be a Crimson Cartoonist!

Henry N. Brooks SOCIALLY LIBERAL, FISCALLY LIBERAL

S

enator Kamala Harris (D-CA) is right to call President Donald J. Trump’s proposed border wall a “medieval vanity project.” The kind of sovereignty encoded in such a display is centuries out of date — as the president himself has acknowledged in comparisons to China’s Great Wall. For liberals though, the pressing question cannot just be about the president’s medievalism. A robust criticism must move to understand modern sovereignty as a different kind of project — with unique promises and dangers.

The history of the U.S.-Mexico border — on which I have written before in these pages — teaches us much about the complex and evolving nature of modern sovereignty. Walls and checkpoints are nearly absent from this history. Human presence, more than barriers, has been the operative concept.Mexican law provided early on for internal colonization in the borderlands. Labor colonies, penal settlements, and military camps were common features of the landscape, marking Mexican sovereignty through bodily presence and carefully regimented movement.

Regulation supplemented these sites of state power by restricting immigrant movement. Special settlement zones prevented foreigners from buying farmland, often preventing immigrant farmers from settling near the border for fear of competing loyalties with the US. These ways of marking the border never required a physical barrier, relying on a social barrier instead.

Call it a social model of the border: less about walls than about the logic of partition, of marking certain people for inclusion and others for surveillance. Much of our present immigration policy reproduces these cleavages to enforce a social border wall, through protracted waiting periods for formal residency status and ankle bracelets for families released from detention while awaiting trial. Our policy even contorts space to normalize social separation. This is truest with our 100 mile wide “border enforcement zone,” where Border Patrol is afforded “expanded search authority” and our founding ideas of rights-bearing become vacuous.

For liberals though, the pressing question cannot just be about the president’s medievalism.

The Crimson @thecrimson OP-ED

Harvard’s Pervasive Culture of the ‘A’

By ALEC M. KENNISON

H

arvard Law School. 3.9. Harvard Medical School. 3.9. Yale Law School. 3.92. These are the average or median grade point averages amongst applicants to just three of the country’s many sought-after graduate schools. To put things in perspective, a 3.9 GPA roughly correlates to all A’s with two “allowed” B-minuses. Combine this lofty GPA goal with the grind of a Harvard student, and you can easily see how much students at Harvard treasure their GPA. While setting high academic standards is important, many harmful effects can consequently develop. Students at Harvard may be often stressed if they obsess over each grade they receive, poorly impacting their mental health.

In addition, the GPA-obsessed culture at Harvard can detract from students’ learning. Students at Harvard often take easier classes knowing they have higher chances to receive an A or 4.0 in that class. They sometimes opt to take the classes for the sake of their GPA and not for the sake of learning more.

I began my year at Harvard wanting to achieve that coveted 4.0. However, after almost a year of being here, I’ve learned that I cannot expect to receive an A in all classes.

However, Harvard strives for an “intellectual transformation,” not a “numerical transformation.” Harvard’s mission statement is not to get their citizens into graduate school, but instead to “educate the citizens and citizen-leaders of society.” The attachment of many Harvard students to GPA can both result in

students being unable to cope with failure, or also cause them to see failure as anything less than perfection.

In high school, many students would often regularly feel satisfied with a much wider variety of grades than an A. Here though, many students might feel they must get an A, and an A only. At a university that is filled with students who were used to receiving A’s in high school, it only seems natural that these students would expect the same grades in college.

However, for many students, the rigor at Harvard is far more difficult than the level they were used to in high school.

The increased difficulty of college compared to high school frustrates many students who expect to receive an A. These high expectations are at the core of the students’ hyper-stress and worry. The solution? Students should change their expectations.

By changing their expectations from receiving an A in a class to other possible grades — be it an A-minus, B, or any other grade, the frustration and stress of many students is no longer present. They no longer must worry that they have to receive an A, for now they’ve accepted that an A isn’t always attainable. In addition, students can prepare for the case that they do end up doing much more poorly than anticipated. By no longer expecting and relying on their ability to get an A, students can focus on trying their best and be at peace with whatever grade they receive.

Students changing their expectations, however, does not mean they should care less about their grades and use that as an excuse to achieve lower grades, for their GPAs may still be imperative for them to access future opportunities. I simply suggest a change in mindset to decrease student’s preoccupation with a certain letter grade. While the outcome of the grade may be similar, the

stress experienced to achieve that grade is nearly completely mitigated.

However, there is a forewarning: Students need to ensure that decreasing their expectations does not translate into decreasing hard work. Instead, students should work their hardest, and therefore, no longer become preoccupied with the grade they’re going to achieve in the end. Ultimately, the most one can do is try their hardest and be satisfied with the result.

While setting high academic standards is important, many harmful effects can consequently develop.

Students at Harvard may be often stressed if they obsess over each grade they receive, poorly impacting their mental health.

I began my year at Harvard wanting to achieve that coveted 4.0.

However, after almost a year of being here, I’ve learned that I cannot expect to receive an A in all classes. By expecting a specific high grade, many students can end up majorly disappointed and are often left questioning, “What could I have done better?”

However, by working one’s hardest, yet not expecting a grade seemingly equivalent in their minds to hard work, one can ensure they maintain a minimally-stressed mindset while likely achieving similar results to a unhealthy, high-expectation based, stressed mindset.

—Alec M. Kennison ’22, an inactive Crimson editorial editor, lives in Thayer Hall.

I sometimes worry that we have unwittingly enabled the president by rehearsing our familiar criticisms of his border wall. Not to say that critiques like those recently given by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris aren’t valuable, but in careful measure. Perhaps Warren is right that the wall indicates a “cruel” disposition on our part, but too much emphasis on the physical wall lends our complicity to the invisible wall being built in our midst. These social “walls” have become the new norm in the era of “catch-and,” when competing tactics of “catch-and-release,” “catch-and-detain,” and “catch-and-return” have framed constant surveillance as the only alternative to deportation for undocumented migrants.

Recent news that the Trump administration is switching from its longtime catch-and-detain tactics to a policy of catch-and-release — because of overcrowding in family detention facilities, no less — only exposes the fluidity of these models, the link between physical and social separation.

I have said before that the border crisis is not — as some progressives would have it — a uniquely American fault. From Xinjiang to Jerusalem, and Derry, Northern Ireland to Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, border crises seem ever more in vogue. I worry that, without concerted critical attention, we will live to see what the Hungarian historian Istvan Hont dubbed the “permanent crisis of a divided mankind.” Amid the entropies of climate change and global extremisms (racial, religious, and nationalist), any permanent partition would mean devastating effects for those on the wrong side.

Thankfully, modern sovereignty models offer us alternatives — however tentative — to the present one, which erects social walls for lack of actual ones. The old “wet foot, dry foot” policy that applied to Cubans until 2017 granted citizenship to all arrivals, extending full equality to refugees of the Fidel Castro government. That model radicalized our common notion of membership, extending it to the least fortunate among us.

I suggest this as an alternative at a moment of great national uncertainty about the place of immigrants in our society. We live in a paradoxical time when the mythos of the “immigrant nation” seems ever more politically potent, even as we continue to surveil actual, present-day immigrants. The contrast is more than a bit ironic, and, for those of us who grew up among our immigrant ancestors, disheartening. Whether we liberals can leverage a national mythos of enterprising immigrants into a pro-immigrant present — without physical or social walls — remains to be seen.

As we witness the transition from catch-anddetain to catch-and-release tactics — and as Democratic presidential hopefuls continue to cement their opposition to a border wall — we might stop to think about the social border we’re enforcing.

Whether we can rally against that wall — a policy forcefield that splits us from our neighbors — is a more complex, and perhaps more profitable, question for our time.

—Henry N. Brooks ’19 is a Social Studies concentrator in Currier House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.

PAGE 5

THE HARVARD CRIMSON | MARCH 29, 2019

UNION FROM PAGE 1

ADMISSONS FROM PAGE 1

Guards Allege Inadequate Record-Low 4.5 Percent of Union Representation Applicants Accepted investigations so we can represent members as fully and fairly as possible at all stages of the grievance and arbitration process,” Rivera wrote. Nava did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Two other Securitas guards at the Medical School also turned to the union after Harvard requested they receive a non-disciplinary transfer to its Cambridge campus. The guards, Arlene Yarde and Susan C. Castignetti, could not find open positions that fit with previously noted personal accommodations, leaving them without wages. Because the transfers were non-disciplinary, Harvard did not have to provide a reason for its request, but Securitas’ contract requires the company to make a “good faith effort” to understand why.

After her transfer two years ago, Yarde asked Karina Flores, the union representative for Harvard’s 32BJ employees, to investigate the transfer. Flores told her she would meet with Christopher Connolly, an area director for Securitas, to ascertain what had happened, but Yarde said Flores never updated her on what the two discussed in that meeting. Yarde also asked Flores to notify her whenever Securitas posted open shifts in Cambridge, according to emails Yarde provided. Flores only texted Yarde about openings once, though, Yarde said.

“She was always saying that she’s going to call me and never would call,” Yarde said.

“They’re supposed to be the

people that we should rely on to help with our case and there’s no communication,” Yarde added. “I’m fighting, but I need somebody else to help me fight.”

Castignetti also said that Flores “would not fight” for justification for her non-disciplinary transfer. Castignetti, who served as union steward for guards at the Medical School, said that Flores only asked Securitas for proof that the client requested the transfer, but not for Harvard’s reasoning.

“If I’m going to represent somebody, especially an acting steward that’s been taken off the campus that represents officers, I would say to the person at Securitas, ‘why is she being transferred?’” Castignetti said.

“I wouldn’t ask for proof. First, I’d ask why.”

“Not only did I get rejected by my campus, I got rejected by my union,” Castignetti added.

Castignetti also said Flores shared information about Castignetti’s case without her permission. Last month, Castignetti discovered posts on Workership, an anonymous online forum used by Securitas guards, that mentioned that Harvard Medical School has lost its union steward – almost certainly a reference to Castignetti. It also noted that the steward was unable to find a shift after the non-disciplinary transfer, according to screenshots of the posts provided by Castignetti. The anonymous officer wrote in the post that they “had a long conservation

by phone with Karina” and then proceeded to list details about Castignetti’s case that she had not revealed to anyone besides Flores. Castignetti said the only way the person could know these details would have been through the phone conversation with Flores. “Karina is the rep, all my stuff is supposed to be confidential,” Castignetti said. “They’re not allowed to divulge anything. And I said this, I was so upset. I was so angry.”

After Castignetti texted Flores about sharing personal information, Flores responded, “I don’t like to be threatened by anyone. Even less when all I done is try to help you,” according to texts Castignetti provided. Flores subsequently blocked Castignetti. Flores did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the two women’s allegations.

“We also take members’ allegations against our union representatives very seriously, and are committed to conducting thorough investigations of these matters,” Rivera wrote in her emailed statement. “We expect our union representatives to conduct themselves professionally and to be committed to the betterment of our members’ lives.”

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment as it is “a matter involving non-Harvard employees and their union.” james.bikales@thecrimson.com ruoqi.zhang@thecrimson.com

service is really part of Harvard’s foundational identity. It’s who we are,” Fitzsimmons said.

“More people seem to be interested in making a difference in terms of public service and community service.”

The percentage of Asian-American admits increased to 25.4 percent, from 22.7 percent last year — the first time a non-white racial demographic has exceeded one quarter of the admitted class.

The percentage of Latinx admits increased to 12.4 percent from last year’s 12.2 percent while the percentage of Native American and Native Hawaiian admits increased to 2.6 percent, up from last year’s 2.4 percent.

The percentages of African-American admits and first-generation college students decreased by 0.7 and 0.9 percentage points, respectively.

The admitted class is 14.8 percent African American and 16.4 percent of the admits will be the first in their families to attend college.

These demographic shifts come amid an ongoing lawsuit brought against Harvard in 2013 by anti-affirmative action advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions that alleges the College’s race-conscious admissions policies unlawfully discriminate against Asian-American applicants. The case went to trial in October 2018; Judge Allison D. Burroughs is expected to release her ruling sometime this year.

Fitzsimmons said in Thurs-

DIPLOMACY FROM PAGE 1

an average grant of $12,000.

Projections suggest that 20 percent of the class — students whose families have an annual income of under $65,000 — will not be required to contribute to the cost of attendance.

Those students will also receive a $2,000 start-up grant to help with move-in costs and other expenses.

Along with their acceptance letters, admitted students will receive an invitation to Visitas — the College’s visiting weekend for accepted students — which will last from April 27

The fundamental principles of how we evaluate applications has not changed for a very long time, and did not change this year.

William R. Fitzsimmons Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid

to April 29. Students have until May 1 to accept, defer, or decline their offers of admissions.

“You want a university like this to inspire people to make the most of their talents and opportunities, so that’s really what all these efforts are about,” Fitzsimmons said. “We’re always a camille.calera@thecrimson.com sahar.mohammadzadeh@thecrimson.com

COALITION FROM PAGE 1

William Burnes Advocates for Diplomacy at IOP and $750 billion for Defense, so nineteen times higher,” he said.

“It’s foolish to let that imbalance continue to increase.”

The discussants also touched on the issue of diversity at the State Department, which Burns described as “painfully slow.”

“When I came into the foreign service in the early 1980s, nine out of ten foreign service

day’s interview that he thinks the increase in Asian-American admits is “the normal course of events.”

“As it turns out, there was an increase in the number of Asian-American applications as well, and that’s something we would expect literally over the next generation,” he said.

Fitzsimmons also said the scrutiny that personal ratings — numerical scores assigned to Harvard hopefuls that evaluate them on qualities like humor and grit — have received did not affect admissions results.

“The fundamental principles of how we evaluate applications has not changed for a very long time, and did not change this year,” he said.

Every state and 89 countries are represented in the admitted class, with the percentage of international students rising 0.3 percentage points to 12.3 percent of the admitted class.

Approximately 21.7 percent of admitted students come from the mid-Atlantic states, 19.6 percent from the South, 17.3 percent from the Western and Mountain states, 16.6 percent from New England, 11.8 percent from the Midwest, and 13 percent from the U.S territories and abroad.

Women and men are equally represented in the incoming class, at 50 percent each.

Current projections from the Financial Aid Office suggest more than half of the Class of 2023 will receive some form of need-based financial aid, with

officers were white and less than a quarter were women,” Burns said.

“By the time I left, the gender balance had improved, but at the senior levels, it was still not nearly where it should’ve been,” he added.

“But what’s happened in the last two years is to reverse those trendlines.”

During the event, Allison

It’s foolish to let that imbalance continue to increase.

William J. Burns Former United States Deputy Secretary of State

and Russell praised Burns’s career, and Allison called him

The T closes.

We don’t.

Breaking news, 24/7.

The Crimson

“one of the greatest international diplomats of this era.”

Russell, who worked with Burns under the Obama administration, called Burns an “icon” for “people who worked in the State Department.”

“I think he’s probably the only living person who has a room named after him at the State Department,” Russell said.

Coalition Endorses Diverse Candidates process, which they argued may discriminate against Asian-American immigrants.

The group backed seven of out of the nine Overseer candidates in this year’s election: Alice H. Chen, Ryan M. Wise, Janet S. Echelman ’87, John B. King Jr.’96, Vivian Y. Hunt ’89, Scott C. Collins ’87, and Reshma M. Saujani. The Coalition also supported six out of the nine HAA candidates: Ethel Billie Branch ’01, Adrienne E. Dominguez ’90, Christina Lewis ’02, Salomé Cisnal de Ugarte, Bryan C. Barnhill II ’08, and Zandile H. Moyo ’00.

The Harvard Alumni Association typically nominates eight candidates, but this year, the organization nominated nine to account for the early resignation of current Overseer James E. Hildreth ’79. Hildreth chose to step down early due to personal obligations.

Coalition member Michael G. Williams ’81 said the group’s endorsements reflected a “diverse and interesting and talented” set of candidates. Williams also noted that, if elected, the endorsed candidates could advocate for race-conscious admission policies and the establishment of a formal ethnic studies program.“ If the alumni chose to support the candidates that we support, we think that there will be people involved in the elected director’s side and on the Overseers side who could play a very key role in terms of supporting diversity at Harvard,” Williams said.

In its announcement, the Coalition indicated that none of the 18 candidates they recommended publicly identify as BGLTQ or “have substantial experience in addressing” BGLTQ issues, which is something that it hopes to address going for-

ward.

“This is an issue that we and the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus will raise with the Harvard Alumni Association,” the statement reads.

Harvard Alumni Association President Margaret M. Wang ’09 did not respond to a request for a comment.

All 18 candidates for both the Board of Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association responded to a diversity questionnaire created by the Coalition and 13 other organizations including the Alumnae-i Network for Harvard Women, First Generation Harvard Alumni, and the Harvard Alumnae of Color.

A committee within the Coalition used the survey responses to select candidates to officially endorse.

Eligible voters will receive paper ballots from University administrators by April 1. For the first time, Harvard degree holders will also be able to vote online through a website that will open on April 3, according to Harvard Alumni Association’s website. Alumni will have until May 21 to return print or

This is an issue that we and the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus will raise with the Harvard Alumni Association Coalition for a Diverse Harvard Statement

online ballots to the Harvard Alumni Association in order for their votes to count. alexandra.chaidez@thecrimson.com aidan.ryan@thecrimson.com

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SPORTS

UPCOMING GAME

SCHEDULE

SOFTBALL VS. BROWN FRIDAY ___________________________________________________________

WOMEN’S RUGBY VS. COLBY SAWYER SATURDAY ___________________________________________________________

MEN’S ICE HOCKEY VS. UMASS FRIDAY ___________________________________________________________

MEN’S TENNIS VS. BOSTON COLLEGE SUNDAY ___________________________________________________________

BASEBALL VS. PRINCETON FRIDAY ___________________________________________________________ MEN’S VOLLEYBALL VS. PENN STATE FRIDAY ___________________________________________________________

FENCING

Harvard Places Fourth in the NCAA Championships ­By WILL CONAUGHTON CONTRIBUTING WRITER

With six All-Americans and a fourth place overall team finish, Harvard fencing concluded its season with a strong performance in the NCAA Championships last week.

The women’s team finished the year at 16-6, with a Ivy League record of 3-3, while the men finished at 16-3 with an impressive 5-1 record within the Ivy League.

Entering into the tournament, the Harvard men’s team was ranked No. 2 in the nation, only trailing Colombia, while the women’s team was ranked No. 5.

The Crimson had high hopes, each team sending the maximum number of fencers allowed to Cleveland.

The result was the highest finish for Harvard fencing since 2006, a year in which it won the tournament. The fourth place finish was the result of strong individual performances across the board.

For the women, first years Veronica Czyzewski and Elizabeth Tartakovsky took home bronze in the saber. The duo racked up 19 and 17 victories with a +43 and +40 touch differential, respectively.

As a result, the pair earned First-Team NCAA honors on their way to a tied-third place finish in the semifinals. Fellow first year Cynthia Liu was recognized as an honorable mention in the foil, going 13-9, with a +4 touch mark, demonstrating the results of a talented and committed freshman class.

“We came in fourth at the ­

NCAA championships with some really strong performances especially from the younger members of the team which bodes well for coming seasons,” junior foil George Haglund said.

“They’re freshman and have been training very hard all season.”

On the men’s side, Geoffrey Tourette worked his way to a 17-6 record in the foil round robins with a +42 touch differential before advancing to the semi-finals.

There he earned a bronze medal in the event, marking the first of two top 10 finishes for the men. For his performance, Tourette garnered First-Team NCAA honors. Fellow foil fencer and junior co-captain Duncan Rheingans-Yoo placed 18th in the event.

Freshman sabre fencer Daniel Solomon put together 12 wins and placed 12th in the event, which earned him an honorable mention for his performance.

Junior epee fencer Erwin Cai racked up 14 wins on the way to a 7th place finish in the event.

This finish marked the second NCAA recognition for the Crimson men as Solomon garnered Second-Team NCAA. Fencing the epee for Harvard, sophomore Adrien Thein-Sandler racked up 12 victories to finish 14th and senior Albert Chien put up 10 wins.

Overall, the Crimson put together a strong finish to the season with some strong individual and team performances to put together their best finish since 2006.

PUMP IT UP Harvard fencer celebrates a match victory at home against NYU. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA —CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

SKIING

Harvard sends Hardenbergh, Kitch to NCAAs Skiing ­By ELIZABETH PACHUS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

­ ompeting in a total of four C events over the course of two days, senior nordic skier Hannah Hardenbergh and freshman nordic skier James Kitch wrapped up a successful trip to the NCAA Skiing Championship.

For Hardenbergh, the thought of competing at the highest collegiate level served as motivation throughout the season, as she hoped to cap off her senior year with her a personal-best . Her hard work paid off as she was able to finish the

season by qualifying and then competing at the NCAA Skiing Championship.

The 66th Annual National Collegiate Skiing Championship was hosted by the University of Vermont in Stowe, Vt. from Mar. 6 to Mar. 9. 74 men and 74 women, making up some of the best collegiate skiers, were selected to participate in the event. The skiers represent those at the top of their field, so the field was deep and the competition challenging, This didn’t intimidate the Harvard program from adding to that competition.

University of Utah ended up

leading the teams in scoring, earning its 13th title in program history with a total of 426.5 points. University of Vermont followed in second place.

The championship includes both nordic and alpine events, with both Hardenbergh and Kitch representing the Crimson in the nordic categories at their first ever NCAA appearance.

The Nordic categories Harvard competed in include the men’s 10k freestyle and 20k classical and the women’s 5k freestyle and 15k classical.

Hardenbergh opened up the Division 1 Championships on Wednesday, competing in the

5k freestyle. Her first appearance at the tournament went well, with a time of 14:47.4 she placed 35th overall. The 5k is a typically a sprint style race and usually one of Hardenbergh’s stronger races.

Skiers accumulate points over the course of the regular season for their performance.

This ranking of skiers is updated throughout the season, and often serves as a goal for athletes throughout the season.

The fierce competition from other schools and many upperclassman makes qualifying challenging, and something that athletes work towards

Ski This Way Harvard sends senior Hannah Hardenberg and freshman James Kitch to compete at the NCAA Skiing Championships.

throughout their entire collegiate careers.

“I was not surprised,” Hardenbergh reflected on Kitch’s qualification. “We both have been working hard towards this goal for a long time and it felt really good to finally see all the hours and the energy pay off.”

Kitch was coming off an especially impressive performance for his first season on the team. In his opening competition earlier this winter, Kitch paced the Crimson men’s nordic squad which resulted in him placing 18th at the St. Lawrence Carnival with a time of 30:14.3.

Concluding Harvard’s show-

PHOTO COURTESY OF LILY KOFFMAN

ing in Stowe was Kitch with his best performance of the championship. Bringing home the Crimson’s sole team points from the championship, Kitch earned Harvard six points with his 25th place in the Men’s 20k Classical with a time of 58:28.1.

Kitch also opened the competition well, finishing the 10k Freestyle Skate in 26.16.0 earning a place of 37th out of a field of 40.

“It couldn’t have gone better,” said Hardenbergh. “Qualifying for championships has been a four year long goal of mine and I was very satisfied to end on a high note.”