I will be one of your moderators for the night along with Katie Patrick who's going to introduce herself now. 

Awesome. Thanks so much, Jason. Hi, everyone. My name is Katie Patrick. I use she/her pronouns and I serve as the coordinator for orientation and family engagement. I work alongside Jason and Lily Castro to coordinate our orientation programs and family engagement events. 

As Jason mentioned, this is our first webinar of the spring semester. And we are going to be hosting four webinars throughout the semester that cover house life and housing day today, career services, commencement, and the Harvard Alumni Association, and a 2023-2024 academic year wrap up conversation with some of our leadership from around the college. 

This webinar was designed to allow us to share information with all of our families at one time instead of just during family weekend when we traditionally hold these panel conversations. We also started these webinars over the summer for our incoming first year students, families, and we had a really great turnout for those. So we wanted to extend this experience to all of our families. 

Tonight, we have some amazing folks that are going to be joining us to discuss house life and housing day. And this is perfect timing because it's coming up just on the horizon in March. So we're very excited to be having this conversation with you all today. Before we move into our discussion, we just have some quick tips and tricks for tonight. 

First, as we heard, the webinar is being recorded and it will be sent out to you all in the next newsletter. I will be sending out reminders for the webinars coming up and we'll be linking them in there. And we'll also post them on our website. After the webinar, we're going to have a survey pop up. If you could take a few minutes to just complete that and give us your thoughts, it would be incredibly helpful. 

As noted, this is our first time doing this and we really want to make this experience as great as it can be for you all. During this webinar, we will have the Q&A feature open and ready, so as you have questions pop up please put them in there. 

We'll do our best to grab them in real time and answer as many as we can. But please know that we probably can't get to all of them. But that's OK because at the end, we'll provide all the contact information to all of our panelists as well as Jason and I so you can send in those questions. 

And if you do have any questions that maybe are outside the realm of house life and housing day, again, check out the webinars that are coming up in the future and see if any of those maybe relate to your questions. And if they don't, again, we'll have that contact information up for you so feel free to send us any questions. And we're happy to answer them and connect you to any staff across campus to get the answers to your questions. 

That's right, Katie. And the last piece of information that we want to share with all of you tonight is regarding a law that parents and family members of all college students should be aware of. This law is known as FERPA, which is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. In short, this is a federal law that states that students records belong to them. 

As college students, they are now in charge of their own academic records and information. So faculty and staff, such as ourselves can't share that information with anyone but the student. So if you do have questions regarding your student's records, be sure to talk to them. And you can certainly learn more about FERPA by using the link that Katie just shared in the chat. 

Awesome. Thank you, Jason. So now, we have a very large panel of folks between staff and students that are going to be talking to us today and I'd love for them to introduce themselves. So first, I'm going to have Lauren join us and introduce herself. 

Hi, Katie and Jason. Good to see you and welcome to everyone who's joined us this evening. My name is Lauren Brandt. I use the she pronouns. I'm the associate dean of students at the college in the Dean of Students Office and I oversee the residential life unit. So I'm glad to be here tonight talking about my favorite subject and it's wonderful to be participating here. 

Thank you, Lauren. Next, Charnele. 

Hi, everyone. My name is Charnele Luster. I take the she series and I serve as the director of residential programs. So I oversee our housing day program, as well as advise our host committees along with some other things here at the college. Great to have you here tonight. 

Thank you. And Nekesa. 

Hello, everyone. My name is Nekesa Straker and I serve as the dean of first year students, which means I work very closely with the 1,670-ish first year students as well as their proctors and resident deans to make their first year a great year. 

Wonderful. Carina. 

Good evening, everyone. My name is Carina Myteveli. I'm the director of housing for the college. I'm very excited to be here with you this evening to talk about my favorite day of the year, housing day. I'm looking forward to answering all your questions. 

Awesome. Next, Sam. 

My name is Sam Vitale. I use she/her. I am a junior at the college right now so I am an undergrad, but more importantly for you all, I am the Currier host HoCo co-chair, which is a very long name but basically, I sort of oversee all of the student life activities done in the house. And I also am recently now the All-House Committee co-chair. 

Yay. Awesome. Thank you, Sam. Anna. Hi, everyone. My name is Anna. My pronouns are she/her. I'm also a junior in the college and I'm the Mather House co-chair. So I plan housing day and all the events for Mather House and then I'm also now the All-House Committee co-chair, so leading all of our houses with Sam. 

Awesome. And finally, Helen. 

Hi, everyone. My name is Helen Scarbrough. I take the she series. I'm also a junior here at the college. I also serve as a HoCO co-chair for Eliott House but today, I'm here in my capacity as a peer advising fellow or PAF. 

Awesome. Thank you all so much again. We so appreciate your time and we are going to jump right into it. So to start off, Lauren, if you wouldn't mind joining us again here. And if you could give us an overview of the houses because what a better way to start this conversation. 

That's right. That is the basic question. So to give a little insight, our housing system at Harvard is really unique and I think I'll just talk through some of those unique aspects of it. So you hear a lot about the houses, those are our 12 upper level student residential communities. They include sophomores, juniors, and seniors. And they really are meant to be the residential space where students can find a welcoming environment on campus. 

We also have the first year Experience Office, which consists of 4 yards, which Nekesa can talk more about, but that is for our first year students. They have 4 yards that are part of their experience and then we have our Dudley Community, which is our Dudley cooperative living community, and also students that choose to live off campus as well as our visiting undergraduate students. 

So we have a range of different options available for our students and you hear a lot about the houses, but there's also a whole range of first year and off-campus student houses or communities as well. So the houses you will hear a lot about them from the other panelists but there are 12 of them. 

They all have a unique sense of identity. They are different in terms of their physical structure so that plays a role in how students experience them, but they all have some really similar aspects to them. So all of them have a dining hall that is part of the physical structure. All of them have libraries, all of them have common spaces where students can gather. 

Many of them have special spaces that are devoted to particular activities like an art room or a gym space. Some have a dance studio incorporated into it. Others have maker spaces. So there's a range of different interests and passions that are represented in these physical spaces. 

And I think the other thing that you will also notice is that every house, every community has their own symbol or shield or mascot. And so there's a range of people that you will see representing their house communities that might be wearing their house swag. 

And you will see trees for Currier House, for example. You will see penguins for Quincy House. You will see moose for Dunster House. So all of those are ways that we see our students celebrating their residential communities and expressing pride in the community that they are part of. 

Awesome. Let me just remind our friends participating to please share your questions in the Q&A. And we'll be taking some of them live and answering some of them directly in the chat. And our first question that we're going to ask live, Lauren, do all of the dining halls at the houses have grills? So what's the grill situation looking like? 

So I'll preface this by saying there's a lot of detail on our websites. And so I invite people to take the opportunity to really look through the different websites that the houses have. They all have their own website. And you can see more about their different aspects of the community on there. 

So the house grills, there are certain houses that have what they call house grills, which are student-run and operated dining options usually late at night after the dining hall has closed. So you might see and I'll invite the students to share their experience but you might see, for example in Winthrop House grill, mozzarella sticks are being offered as kind of a special for the evening. 

And they'll have certain hours that they're open and this is really a chance for students to both contribute to the house community but also a lot of them find that the experience of running these house grills is a really interesting career or professional development and skill development for them. 

They learn a lot in terms of managing both the entire operation. But also, they get support from our wonderful partners in our university dining services who help with just safety measures, training, making sure that they have the supplies that they need to do this safely. So that's an example of a house grill. And about half of them have grills of some sort and a couple have a grill that is more of a cafe model. So I know the Quad has a very beloved Cabot cafe that they enjoy. So that's just an example. 

But if you're thinking about just the dining options in the dining halls, many of the dinner hours will have grill cooks that are preparing things like chicken or something to order as part of the dining service in the evening. So that's-- I hope that's a quick answer to the question. 

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Lauren. So now that we have a great overview of the houses in general, can you tell us a little bit more about what staff live and work in the houses and how do our students interact with them maybe day-to-day? 

Yeah. So another unique aspect of our residential spaces is the staff that we have in these spaces as well. So you might have heard the term RA or residence hall director in other contexts or other institutions. Here, what we have is a model where each residential community effectively is almost like a mini college. They have a faculty dean, which is a faculty member from the university that really oversees the house in partnership. 

So they have two faculty deans that are in residence and live in the community with the students. They have a resident dean, which is the person that is primarily charged with the academic aspect of the student's affiliate with the house. So they will support students who are experiencing-- they have questions related to their academics, their course enrollment. Even if there's a situation that might be impacting their academics. This is a person that they can go to for support. 

And then we have our house administrators who are really wonderful partners in terms of just the housing assignments and the programming for the house. An academic coordinator who supports the resident dean and the academic records. And then we have our resident tutors and our proctor staff. And these are often graduate students or other affiliates of the university who choose to live in residence with our students and to serve as mentors. 

Sometimes they are also academic advisors for these students and to be a kind of mentor and person that is charged with really supporting these students as they move through their time here. And it can be really special to see how these relationships form from when a student might enter as a first year student. They get to know their proctor, they move into the house, they get to know their tutors, the tutors are able to see them pass through sophomore, junior, senior year. 

And so at almost every commencement ceremony that you see, you will see the residential staff really embracing the successes of the individual students that are part of their community because they've lived with them and they've seen how much they have grown and developed over the time here. And it's always heartwarming to see it. It's one of my favorite parts of the year. 

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Lauren. Jason, was there any other questions that you wanted to bring forward? 

We've got lots of questions that are coming in that are going to be answered by some of our speakers coming up. In particular, our next one. 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lauren. Next, I'm going to have Carina join us and Carina is going to provide us with a little bit more information about the house lottery system and she's got a great presentation for you all. So I hope you're ready. 

Oh, good. Thank you for having me again. I'm really excited to talk to all of you about this process. It really is a process that is near and dear to my heart. It's as I said, one of my favorite days of the year. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a an insight into the process, the things that we take into consideration when running the lottery, some upcoming deadlines, and information that I hope will be helpful to you. 

And as Katie said, if you had any questions after the presentation, certainly feel free to reach out our office. We're always happy to answer questions. So as Lauren was mentioning earlier, every house has its shield and here we are. We have the 12 houses plus the Dudley Community all represented on this page. 

So first question is, what is the purpose of the lottery? Why do we run the lottery? Well, the purpose of the lottery is to randomly assign current first year students or rising sophomores as we refer to them to one of our 12 houses. It is a random lottery so factors like legacy, religion, athletic affiliation, siblings, other siblings on campus, those are things that we do not take into account. 

The only thing that is considered are medical accommodations that are approved by the DAO and that's key. These have to be approved by the DAO. We work very closely with the Disability Access Office to make sure that all the information that we have is correct so that when we're assigning students to houses, we are able to meet all of their needs. There 

Are some important dates coming up and one that has already passed. So the deadline to request an accommodation was Friday, January 26. That is not to say that if your student were to reach out to the DAO now and ask for an accommodation, that it would not be reviewed but it is-- 

Time is ticking so it's one of those things that is really, really important to do if they have a medical need in order for us to ensure that it will be an accommodation that we take into account before we run the lottery versus if they come forward at a later time and the lottery has already been run. And then we get stuck in a little bit of a problem where the houses are full and we can't move students around very easily. 

So if your student hasn't done that, please do remind them that they should. Another very important date is February 26 at noon through Wednesday 28th also at noon. This is the time that the actual lottery application is open and every first year student that has completed a fall semester must fill out this application in order to enter the lottery. 

These are dates that we have shared with your students. These are dates that are posted on our website and they should all be very much aware of them. But again, just wanted to make sure that you are aware of them as well. 

A little bit about the words that we use when running the lottery. We use a blocking group. So that is a group of up to eight students, mixed gender groups are fine. And these are students that enter the lottery together and are guaranteed to be assigned to the same house. One of the questions that I saw before was asking about, what happens when they're in the house, does that mean they all block together-- they're all assigned to the same suite? 

It does not. So all we can do is guarantee that they're all going to be in the same house but the actual room assignment, the suite assignment is decided by the house. So there's a second lottery that happens in the spring where the house administrator will work with your student. There's questionnaires and they'll try to fit students together as best as they can. 

So while some blocking groups may be split up into several rooms, they will all be in the same house and usually in the same entryway or in close proximity to one another. But again, that's a process that is run by the house, not the housing office. 

Just again, following up on what Lauren said, there's also the Dudley Community where students they can affiliate with the Dudley Community if they're planning to live off campus or in one of our co-ops. But it is important to state that students who are planning to either move off campus or live in the co-op still must enter the housing lottery. 

I also wanted to share with you, this is a video a couple of years ago but we talk about housing day so much. This is a snapshot of what happens on housing day. This is right after we distribute the letters to the HoCos or the House Committees and they're going to start running and distributing the letters to the students, first year students in the yard. That year was quite snowy but you get the idea. So here we go. 

Don't know if you can quite feel the excitement coming through the film but it really is a very, very fun day in the yard. So I hope your student really enjoys it. And then lastly, as promised, some contact information should you have any questions that we don't answer in this webinar, certainly feel free to always reach out to collegehousing@fas. We're happy to answer any and all questions. 

Thanks, Carina. I want to remind our viewers that this webinar is being recorded and will be posted on our website and be part of our family and parent engagement newsletter, which you'll be receiving. So there's a couple of questions in the chat, Carina, and would love to learn a little. Can you share-- there's a question, which houses have recently been renovated? So can you talk just very briefly about house renewal and what does that mean? You're on mute. 

My apologies. I'm so sorry. House renewal is very, very exciting. It has been several years in the making and we have renewed several of our houses. Some in its entirety and others just buildings that make up a whole house. So for example, Dunster House has been renewed, fully renewed. Winthrop House, Lowell House. We're currently working on Adams House. Two of the four buildings have been renewed we expect it to be fully renewed by fall of '25. 

We also have two buildings that-- the partial renovation I was mentioning before. One is Stone Hall and Quincy House and the other is McKinlock and Leverett House. So it's a smaller building that together with the towers and Leverett and new Quincy in Quincy make up the entire house. 

Soon we will be expanding house renewal to the only two other houses in the river area that have not been renewed and that's Eliot and Kirkland. We're very excited. But to answer your question about what does it mean, it really means a full renovation. So the house is literally brought down to the brick, the exterior brick, and then we look at every single space in the house that is not historic spaces. Historic spaces are just cleaned and repaired but no changes are done to those spaces. 

And then the rest of the house, we look at accessibility. That's a very important thing. As many of you may know, our non-renewed houses are not accessible at all. They're vertical entryways with a lot of stairs. So students with mobility issues would-- excuse me, mobility accommodations would not be able to be assigned to those spaces. And in the renewed houses, they're fully, fully accessible with every room being visitable. 

And it also has air conditioning in some of the common areas, which is not available in the non-renewed houses. And it also changes the approach of the house from vertical entryways to horizontal. So that changes a little bit of the community in the house. While before, you had to go down the stairs go to the courtyard and up another set of stairs to go visit your friend, now you can just go up and down your hallway or up and down the floor to visit everyone in the house. So again, we have a few houses under our belt but we still have a little bit of ways to go. 

Amazing. Thanks for that. And you shared-- one last question then we'll let you off the webinar hook. So you shared a little bit about once a student gets their housing assignment, it's really up to the house and the house administrators who work with their students to determine roommates and matching and all of that. But how many people are there to a room or a suite? Is it the same in all the houses? 

It's not. That's a great question. So our houses are so different. The architecture is different across the board. So we have a wide array of rooms. We have singles, we have a hallway singles and doubles and suites but we also have suites that go from 2 people to up to 10 people in Currier House. So there's everywhere in between. 

So the different houses have different styles. So Mather House, for example, has all singles but they tend-- they're all singles and suites and they're connected through the bathroom to other suites. The renewed houses have hallway singles. So imagine a more like a hotel room. You're in the hallway and you just walk into your space, but they don't have private bathrooms. They tend to be hallway bathrooms. 

Then you have the non-renewed houses like Eliott and Kirkland that have a suite style. So you walk in, there's common room, bedroom, and bathroom. Up in the Quad, you have some Jack and Jill or two singles that are connected by a shared bathroom. So there's so many different configurations to how the students could end up. It's just really very much depends on which house they're assigned to. 

Thank you so much, Carina. That was so much great information. We so appreciate it. And next, I'm going to ask Nekesa to join us. We had this word thrown around a bit blocking groups, and I'd really love to hear your thoughts and how working with first year students, how that goes for housing day and blocking. 

Yeah, could definitely talk about that. One thing I'm going to mention just right before that is that there have been some questions related to this presentation and how do students find out about it. So we actually did a webinar a couple of weeks or maybe a week ago, and it's recorded and we are in the process of captioning it. So we will definitely post it shortly for students but the students also have the opportunity-- each proctor and their PAFs will actually host an entryway meeting to talk all about this process. 

So I would highly encourage your students to attend. They will have all of the questions about what is blocking, the lottery, the PAFs, will definitely share their own experiences. So it's a really, really great opportunity that we encourage students to attend. In terms of blocking, we talked about housing day. It is an exciting time on campus. It's a great tradition, but the whole process of blocking at times can potentially be stressful for some students. 

So sometimes students correlate their blocking group with their friends and we really want to reiterate that the blocking process is really part of a housing assignments process. And so we do our best to make it as stress-free as possible and just emphasizing with students that-- I'm hoping many of you have been to the Harvard's campus and we are not as vast as some people might think. 

And so just because you are living in one house does not mean that you will not be friends with folks in a different house. And so we work to really help students understand what friendship means, how those connections still stay connected, but also being graceful. So sometimes there'll be situations where students might say, I really like this person but I don't necessarily want to live with them. 

And it's OK. It's OK to have those conversations. But just being really transparent with people and not kind of not being open and honest. And so if there are ever a time that a student feels like they're having a challenging conversation and they don't know how to approach it, they should definitely outreach to their proctor so that their proctor can walk them through what that conversation could potentially be. 

It is definitely one of those things where we know that there's a lot of anxiety and all of that. But our staff are here and willing to have those conversations with students at any time about what it means to be block-to-block and go through the whole process. There are also sometimes questions about what it means to be in a blocking group of one. 

There are definitely students who just decide, you know what, I don't want to go through this process. I just want to live in a house. And so they can totally do that. There are some students who might feel like they haven't made quite their friend groups yet. And so they might feel like, oh, man, why is it that I'm only in a blocking group? And that's OK, we definitely have a number of students who go into the process only as one. 

On housing day, they are still fully involved in the process. So some people will still choose to participate and having that letter dropped off at their door and all of the excitement, or some people might not want to participate in that. And we do have alternatives for that which include coming to our office and picking up their letter with also a little special kind of surprise along with that. 

So there's no issue with the blocking group of one and also, we know that this could be a challenging situation sometimes for students but we try our best to make it as transparent and organized as possible with our staff. 

Awesome. Thanks for all of that, Nekesa. You really did a great job, I think, of illustrating the importance of blocking and how this could work for anyone with a big group or even solo, and really appreciate that. And I don't see any big questions on blocking groups in the chat so I'm going to toss this back over to Katie. 

Awesome. Thank you so much, Nekesa. And I'm actually going to switch up our panelists here for a moment because I just feel like this is such a great opportunity for Helen to join us and talk about her role as a PAF because Nekesa had a lot of great points of what PAF do and their role in this blocking process. So we are very lucky to have a PAF with us here. Helen, if you want to tell us a little bit about your experience, what a PAF even is and your role working with first year students. 

Yeah, thank you so much, Katie. So excuse me, a PAF is a Peer Advising Fellow as I mentioned previously. And what that means is that we're students as well and we act as an advisor to all first year students starting from early August when we're all assigned to our first year students in specific first year entryways, all the way up into the time that they're leaving campus for the summer, which is very sad because we've spent the entire year getting to know them, getting to know their entryway. 

And we're here to have of those conversations that are honestly better to have from a student perspective as opposed to maybe like an academic advisor or your proctor so you can really get that student experience, which I think is very valuable. I learned a lot from my PAF coming into the college and I'm very grateful for the entire program and I'm very grateful to be involved in it now. 

So with reference to blocking, as Dean Straker mentioned, we hold a mandatory what's called study break for all first year students in the entryway. Where we summarize the entire process from our perspectives, kind of giving our tips and tricks, and how to have those conversations with friends with whom you might want to block or maybe friends that you love and you love your friendship with them but you don't think that it would be strengthened by living altogether. So just figuring out how to navigate this process as a student and speaking from our own perspectives. I find very valuable. 

Awesome. Thank you so much. And then if you wouldn't mind sharing how you got involved and how you became a PAF, and maybe one of your favorite experiences so far. 

Yeah, of course. So in the spring, early spring, late winter of your first year, you can apply to be a PAF. And PAFs are sophomores, juniors, or seniors. You can apply to be a PAF any year you want except as a senior. And you'd be applying for the following year. We just finished our application process, which is very exciting. 

And you fill out just a standard application describing how you see your commitments panning out for the next year and why you think you'd make a great PAF. Sometimes you can speak to the own experience you had with your PAF that year or you can speak to other leadership opportunities you've had either in high school or on campus so far. 

And then you'll engage in a set of interviews with our Advising Programs Office or APO including one of the returning PAFs. And you kind of go from there. We have trainings shortly before first years come to campus, and then you're kind of off to the races. You're paired with an entryway team and some co-PAFs so that you build a community within your entryway. And it's a really great program. Hopefully, your students have had positive experiences within their entryways and with their PAFs. 

Awesome. Thank you so much for that insight and all that great information. We really appreciate you being here and sharing all that with us. So I'm going to move on to our next panelist here and it's actually two panelists we're going to bring back. We're going to have Carina join us and Charnele. 

So our question here for you both is, there's a lot of different staff that work with our students in the houses and it may not be very obvious which one is which and who should go to for what, so would you two mind kind of talking about the difference between residential life and housing and how do students engage with those different entities? 

Absolutely. So can get us kicked off, Carina. So when you think of all of the fun and exciting things that Nekesa and Lauren had to share around our resident deans and our faculty deans and our academic coordinators and the list goes on and on and on. 

So when you think of the overall student experience and the social opportunities and some of that support that students receive within the residential experience that is residential life. So we are here to support your students and provide them the best opportunities and the best experience that they can have. 

I'll talk to you a little bit about some of the work that the house administrator does and how to-- little tips of how to think about which group to ask questions if it's the house administrator versus the housing office. So every house has a house administrator, and they're responsible for doing all of the housing assignments after the housing office has assigned first-year students to them. 

So the house administrator is best prepared to answer questions around room capacity, room assignments in the house. They will be prepared to answer questions around-- gosh, if there's issues with roommates, if there are any upcoming deadlines related to house-specific lottery-related forms. For example, when they're running their house lottery, they will send out emails with different deadlines for students to make sure that they fill out these different forms, that they then use to assign students. 

So anything that has to do with the actual room assignment of the student is managed by the house administrator. The housing office is more along the lines of setting policies for the houses. So we set the general deadlines for housing for returning student applications. If your student is traveling or studying abroad, we will say this is the deadline and it's always the same deadline every year. It's always the first or third Wednesday or something. 

So that's-- our area of expertise is around policies, deadlines across all the houses, and also if students have questions about if they wanted to transfer a house at any point they should reach out to us and we can answer any and all questions about that. 

It's a great segue, Carina, I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about that transfer process. So sometimes a student may just not be clicking with the house and may be interested in learning if they could move to a different house. So how does that process work and what's the timeline for notifications of requests? 

Yes, so we do have a process. It's called the house interhouse transfer or IHC. And that process happens three times a year. Students are only eligible to enter that lottery and it is a lottery after they have lived two full semesters in the house that they were sorted into. So you have to live your full sophomore year in the house before you can transfer. That does not mean that you can't submit the application the spring of your sophomore year, but you will not move into the new house until the fall. 

The reason we do that is because we want to make sure that students have the opportunity to really get to know their house, to really get to other folks there, really make sure that this is not the place for them. As I mentioned, it is a lottery process. So we have hundreds of students at times submit an application and not everybody is approved. It's very much depends on bed numbers, availability in the houses that they want to move into or out of. 

And so we meet-- it's actually happening in the next week and review the applications and we'll go through every single application and see if there is a space where the student wants to go. If there is, then we will approve it. If there isn't, then we will not approve that application. 

It's hard to say how many people will get approved every time just because it varies greatly from year to year, depending on how many students apply and how many spaces are available. There is a second application for a fall entry into the new house. It's called IHT round two and what that means is that at the end of the summer, usually mid to late July, we will look through all the houses and see how many beds are empty. And then we will say, OK, we have this many beds and this many suites and this house and that other house. 

And if we can, will make sure that we approve student transfers then. That round is a little bit more difficult just because we're looking at specific rooms so we have to look at gender, for example, as we're making those assignments. And then the student won't know if they were approved until typically the first couple of weeks in August, which is really, really close to the start of the school year and therefore, not a preferred application or timing of the application by the students. But the reason we do it so late is to maximize the number of beds that we have to offer students. That too is a lottery so there are no guarantees that they will be approved. 

That's really helpful, Carina. We also have a really hot topic bubbling up in the chat. What is overflow housing? 

I was looking for the mute button. So overflow housing is the term we use for housing assigned to a house that is not a part of that building. So for example, we have houses like Dunster House that has overflow housing in a different building on DeWolfe Street. So that means that the students living in those buildings are affiliated with Dunster House, but they don't live in the house proper. 

They will have tutors living with them there. They will have everything that the other Dunster students do. The only difference is the location. That is overflow housing in its most generic sense. However, and sometimes it gets a little confusing, when a house is going through renewal, we also have to have overflow or swing housing. The terms to me they're slightly different because they mean different things but sometimes students use them interchangeably. 

And what swing housing is, is temporary housing that all the students in a building that is being renovated or a house that is being renovated will live while their house is under construction. Right now, we only have two buildings in Adams offline. That's Russell and West Morley. So those students are living either at the inn at Mass Ave or another building on Plympton Street. 

So the difference there is that once house renewal is done, all the students that are Adams students will return to the house proper and overflow housing, that is part of their bed count so they will remain in that space. 

So helpful, Carina. I'm going to ask if Lauren can pop back in for some additional thoughts. 

Yeah, I think people hear the term overflow and swing housing and get very anxious about it and just want to level that. They have the same structures in place to support them. They have the same access as anyone who is living in the house proper as Carina termed it. So I just want to reassure everyone that they would continue to have the access to the spaces that we talked about, they have access to the dining hall, they have access to the residential staff who are also in that housing with them. 

And we often find that because those are spaces that sometimes they have arrangements that are a little bit more like an apartment style of living, that some of our students actually find that to be a really nice resource for them. So it's important just to know that we work hard to make sure all of our students feel connected to their host communities no matter what building they live in. 

And even when we talk about the term house proper, I for example, was a resident dean in Leverett House for many years. And Leverett House has actually five separate buildings that they were part of. So I just want to give a little context for that too. 

If you can stay on real quick, Lauren. 

Sure. 

So there's another question in the chat. If a student is assigned to overflow housing in one year, do they get preference the next year to be in the main building perhaps? 

So the way that we have our housing assignments work once a student is a junior or a senior, I'll use the term rising junior, rising senior because what we actually do is we have students participate in a housing lottery within their housing community every year that they're here. So as sophomores when they enter the house, the house administrator would work with them and make assignments based on that. 

And then as juniors and seniors, the house administrator runs a housing process where students get to see what rooms are available and they get to pick the rooms that they want to pursue. So I think it really changes the housing process as you move through the different years. 

Awesome. Thanks, Lauren. 

Awesome. Lauren, thank you so much. And I'm actually going to have Charnele join us back here really quick. So we've talked a lot about housing day and about the houses and all of this fun stuff. But can you tell us what actually takes place on housing day? What does it look like for our students? 

Absolutely. And folks are probably wondering, why is housing day so important to our students? So with housing day, our students will actually find out the house that they're going to be living in for the next three years of their Harvard College experience. So it's a very, very big deal. And housing day this year will be on Thursday, March 7th so mark that on your calendars, check in with your students. 

And we have a day-long celebration organized for them. So bright and early in the morning at around 8:30, your students will find out what house they are in. So our HoCos are working very hard right now to organize their peers to make this day a celebratory one for our first year students. 

So our upperclassmen students will dorm storm and a.k.a. Going into the first year residence, knocking on doors, handing out letters. And then for our students who are looking to opt out of that experience, as Nekesa shared, we will also have the opportunity for students to come to our office over at Six Prescott to pick up a little special gift for them as well. 

Then at the noon hour, lunchtime hour, we're going to have our houses, our HoCo chairs and houses set up in Annenberg to welcome the first year students with swag and music and T-shirts and all of the things to welcome them into their houses. And then later that evening, most of the houses will also have a dinner or, again, some sort of celebration for your first year students. So as I said, day-long, lots of celebrations, but we are very much looking forward to it. 

Charnele, that begets a wonderful question in the chat. Are there classes on housing day? 

Yes, there are classes on housing day. So the way that we actually schedule it is we will wrap up handing the letters and dorm storm right before classes begin. So your students will also be able to head on over to class. And then again, during the lunch hour, so they should still continue to do what they normally would do on their Tuesday, Thursday schedules and head to those classes and the celebrations will still be there. 

Awesome. Thank you so much for all of that info and that really great overview of how that day runs for our students. And since we talked about HoCo a lot and all the amazing work that they're doing. I'm going to ask Sam and Anna to join us and tell us a little bit about maybe what's going on right now with you all? What are you planning? And how did you get involved in HoCo? 

So I guess I can start. So I guess on the housing day track, I would say that housing day is the real first introduction to HoCo that any students will have because almost all of the festivities at nighttime are organized by the HoCo. And so while the dorm storming is the one that probably gets the most publicity where everyone dorm storms the yard and we all have signs and as you saw in that great video, like the energy is amazing, that's not where the day stops. 

We also like Charnele mentioned, have lunch where we give out merch. And then after classes for the day, we invite the rising sophomores to the respective houses. And so I;m in Currier and so all the sophomores that got Currier that day will come, will eat dinner with us. We like to encourage sophomores eating with the upperclassmen who are already in the house so they can get a sense of the people that are there. 

Usually, we do tours as well and also some other fun events that don't want to completely spoil because I know it's different for every house, but it's really fun. And so that's where I first got introduced to HoCo. And I was like, wow, everyone here is so welcoming and it was completely like just an amazing day. And I was like, this is so cool. I'm so excited to be a part of this house. 

And so then summer comes around and there's a little bit of a break, but right when sophomores get into their houses, their sophomore orientation as well where HoCo is work with the house and they throw a bunch of fun events for the sophomores to get introduced to actually living in the house even though they've already met the house and everything, but they get to have all these fun events and have a good time before classes start. And those were the main two introductions to HoCo. Obviously, throughout the semester, HoCo throws really fun events. 

Steins are a really popular one that happens bi-weekly. They're just like little get togethers in a common area in the house. And we also have formals but for my role in HoCo, how I got started was before the formal because they're usually at the end of the semester, at Currier or at least we have this really cool Stein called karaoke, which is a pun on karaoke. And everyone-- like so many people in the house get together and we just sing songs and cheer each other on and it's great energy. 

And I think that was the moment where I was like, wow, I really want to do this. And so my sophomore fall, I applied for co-chair and that is what I've been doing for the past year and continue on doing because I just love my house community so much and love HoCo as well. And so I'm sure Anna has a lot to say about Mather as well. So I'll pass it on to her. 

Yes, so very similar to Sam, Mather-- I'll tell my experience first maybe. Well, for context, I think a lot of HoCo kids were like previous student council kids. And so I like loved planning events in high school and things like that, really into school spirit and things of that nature. And so I remember on my housing day my dorm got dorm stormed and the people that were knocking on our door it was so exciting. 

Mather has two mascots, a gorilla and a lion, and the people that dorm stormed were dressed in both of our mascots, which was so funny and it was just so exciting. And then I think the rest of the day was just kind of like a dream. It was an adrenaline rush I'd say. You get to meet all the upperclassmen, but also meet the other sophomores that are going to be with you for the next three years or rising sophomores. 

And so it's awesome to be like we're going to be together for the next three years. And so you get to meet a lot of people. And then kind of the process throughout that day is after went to classes, things like that, they have a dinner that we had at Mather House. And Mather House has some unique traditions. So we had a bunch of ice cream and community dinners. I got to meet some of the tutors who were studying similar things that I wanted to study. 

And so it was just such a welcoming community and I felt so at home and I think my Harvard experience has really been shaped by the houses. I think the social life at Harvard is rooted in the houses. And it was like immediately when I walked into the doors of Mather for the first time, I was welcomed home. And so things have kind of been like that ever since. 

And so I knew that I was just so passionate about that kind of community that I felt that immediately that I wanted to lead that. I also love planning events and I love kind of working in collaboration with other students and that was something that was kind of previous from high school as well. And so I knew I wanted to take part in that. 

And so similar to Sam, my sophomore fall or I guess my-- the December of my sophomore year, I ran for co-chair and was elected. And so it's been an awesome time since planning different events. Mather House has a bunch of funny events. I always tell people to Google different houses events because they're so funny and interesting and every house is unique but awesome and every house has awesome things. 

And some of the questions in the chat were kind of talking about people going to other houses. And I think something that's cool is like I've been to some of Sam's events and as HoCo co-chairs, we like to go to other people's events, learn what their houses are doing. And all the houses are very kind of in community with one another, which is super awesome. 

And so just because I'm Mather House doesn't mean I can't go to other events and programs that other HoCos are having, which is another awesome part of the social life and community that HoCos create within the campus but also within specific houses. So that's a little bit just kind of about my experience. It's an awesome time. Definitely my favorite part of Harvard. And I love telling people about my experience in HoCo. 

Thanks, Anna. I've got a quick question for you and Sam because we didn't talk about one of my favorite parts of housing day. What's up with these videos that our houses produce? And who has the best video? 

That's a good question. So we have been working hard on our video. Last night, our HoCo was up pretty late writing our lyrics or editing some of our lyrics, practicing the different songs that we're performing. And so I would say like quintessential part of the Harvard housing day experience are the videos. And so usually, the night before housing day, at midnight or the day before that, houses start to release their videos. 

Sometimes they even have little spoiler videos that are short clips. And so the first year students start watching these videos seeing kind of like the hype, the energy around the house. And I'd say all videos are so awesome. I love watching these videos. And so much time is put into them, I didn't realize as a first year student how much time is put into them. We started working-- I think a lot of HoCos us start working on them in December whenever they're new co-chairs get elected. 

And so we've been working on ours for a while writing the lyrics, filming. We're doing some filming this weekend so it's a very long process but it's so fun. And then as a first year student, before actual housing day happens, the morning-- this year are going to be on March 7, you get to really understand the kind of energy that your house has and it makes you excited really. 

For whatever house you get, you're excited because they all are so awesome and the videos are always amazing. Shout out to Currier. Currie's video last year was absolutely awesome. And so I just like love watching the videos. And you also get to see your friends who are in other houses and watch them dance and sing. And so it's a really awesome part of the housing day experience. 

Highly recommend to our families to go to YouTube and track down some of these housing day videos. They're magical. I'd like to quickly-- Sam and Anna, if you can stay on I'd like to quickly bring in maybe Lauren and Charnele to talk a little bit about a question in the chat. Thinking about that housing day celebrations have safety rules for our students, and so how do we make sure that this is a safe celebration for everyone? 

So safety is definitely at the top of our minds and making sure that while this is a fun moment for our students and a memorable one, that it's also a safe one. So we are working diligently in the background connecting with some of our campus partners, some of our safety and security teams. Working with our resident deans so that they're aware of some of the festivities that we have going on. 

Again, just to make sure that we are-- what is it, dotting all of our I's and crossing all of our T's when it comes to your student safety. We are planning on publicizing or we have an email that will be sent out to all first year students on the Monday, the week of housing day, just reminding your students of here are the policies and procedures, here are some safety phone numbers that you might need to utilize. 

Don't forget about our help seeking policy. So all of the things that we have drilled into your students during orientation, they're going to receive again via email. 

Did we miss anything on that, friends? Amazing. Thank you so much for that. There's another quick question in the chat that I'll answer. So questions about summer storage in that service. So that is traditionally run by the Harvard Undergraduate Association, which is our student government. And they are fast at work figuring out the plans for this summer and they will be sharing that with the students very, very soon. 

And so that I think brings us to the end of our time together, if I'm not correct. I just want to say thank you so much to everyone, for joining us. We hope to see you in a few weeks for our next one. And so Katie's going to share some stuff to close us out. 

I was muted. So thank you all again. I know we're just a little past time but I wanted to share everyone's contact information from the different staff members that were here today. You can reach out to them here. I'll also make sure to include this information when I send the recording and make sure to connect, which email goes where so you can send any questions to those folks. 

And then yes, again, we have a couple more webinars coming up. So the next one is going to be on the 28th again at 6:00 PM. We're going to be joined by some career services folks. So if you have any questions about when should my student be applying to things, where's the best website to go, how do I do all that, so they'll be able to talk through all different things about getting ready for looking at different summer opportunities or jobs if you're a senior. 

And then on March 20, we have commencement and Harvard Alumni Association joining us. And on April 10, we'll have some leaders from around the college to talk about the academic year as a whole and kind of wrap up before we do have commencement. So if you have any other questions, this is how you can reach Jason and I. If you just email the parents email @fas.harvard.edu, we will respond back and be able to connect you to any resources that you have. 

But we want to thank you so, so much again for joining us today. And please, fill out that survey, give us your feedback. We want to make sure that we are answering all questions that you have and discussing topics that you're interested in learning about. So panelists, once again, thank you all so much for your time. Jason, thank you, as always. And we will talk to you all again on the 28th. 

We'll see you soon. Bye, everyone.