Though my sophomore year GPA was an innocent bystander to my perhaps over indulgent raising of the wrist, I agree wholeheartedly.
 

This fiasco is just the culmination of many years of Paul McLoughlin's ineptitude. Many failures of communication led to this chaos of ill will. It is time for McL to go. He has very little understanding of the value of day-to-day student social life, and I have never heard of him expressing educational values of any kind. I am given by good sources to understand that he subscribes to counterproductive pop psychology about 'kids these days,' and shares those views with students. In combination these traits make him a very poor liaison with students, whatever his pencil-pushing powers might be.

Harvard can do much better, and should begin to prioritize institutional support of appropriate postadolescent social development, as it has recently done on the matter of advising. A degree in the pseudo-academic field of 'Student Services' should not be valued much as a qualification. Susan Nelson would have been a good fit for his job; perhaps her office could expand and take over his portfolio as a sign of institutional recommitment to the campus primacy of residential life, in the Houses.

Whether the school should pay for room parties is a different question, one that would be less pressing if the House system were supported better, materially and intangibly. I tend to think a qualified No is the right answer, and it seems that Pilbeam is grasping the nettle and cleaning up some of Gross's mess here. He should go further and replace McLoughlin with an educator who communicates well and believes in the primary value of student interaction for its own sake (not as a means to better numbers on surveys, or as a dutifully implemented institutional task list).

As to your quote from that blog, someone needs to speak out against the moronic notion that alcohol relieves depression. Depression is a clinical condition with which alcohol use is strongly correlated (albeit as an effect, not a cause). No one should be allowed to cheapen the language of mental illness by equating it with lack of fun.

Snipingly,

Standing Eagle
 

"Surprise, surprise, social events are possible without alchohol."

I would indeed be surprised if this were true.
 

SE--someone on Sex and the Ivy does indeed rebut the notion that alcohol helps relieve depression. The author responded, basically, that she was being flip, and hadn't meant "depression" in a technical sense.
 

actually, i've found that events at both of my alma maters have become sort of alcohol free: the jerky caterers give us a bar with crappy and expensive drinks, so we bring our own wine/beer/vodka.

then, aforementioned caterer flips out because he/she is legally responsible for all the people drinking at the event because there's no way to discern who is drinking what. so when we're told we can't drink our own booze, and you can imagine how well that goes over.
 

Salut!
 

I mean, the alumni tailgates at the Game are certainly not alcohol-free. I'm pretty sure that at least some reunion events aren't, either (at least, I remember them posting reunion bartender jobs when I was an undergrad). Not saying you're wrong, just curious.
 

6:28, I was being sarcastic....