The Crimson reports that undergraduates are petitioning the dean for nap space in Harvard Yard. “People don’t realize how important it is to take a nap,” said the student who started the petition. “It improves your GPA because you’re actually more focused.”
I should probably be glad that the student body has recovered from the cheating scandal and is returning its attention to silly ideas. Of course getting enough sleep is not a silly idea, but let's remember that virtually all undergraduates live in College housing, at worst 20 minutes from where the classrooms are. There is free bus service. Or they could just go to bed earlier. Does someone really need to say this sort of thing?
Recalling a previous piece of impish student silliness, I blogged a few days ago in Harvard Wins the Super Bowl, "at some point, deans really have to tell students to act like grownups." This would be a fine place to make the point before the university once again turns up on the Daily Show!
You're not the only one who saw that and thought, "Really?"
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would rather see the re-introduction of maid service, which went away after the electric vacuum cleaner had been invented. Except that that maybe now their job could be extended to tucking students in at night.
Deletehttp://www.thecrimson.com/article/1954/2/25/perkins-deplores-maid-loss-would-fight/
Let me see if I can make that link clickable:
DeletePerkins deplores maid loss
Back in my day we took naps where we supposed to take them. In our classes. (There's a CS 121 joke in there somewhere...)
ReplyDeleteOr resorted to other strategems to REDUCE the number of student-faculty contact hours. When Bill Gates took from me the course now known as AM 107, I once turned from the blackboard and caught him pulling the minute hand of the clock down!
DeleteI thought all of Harvard Yard was a wonderful nap space.
ReplyDeleteAs for napping in classes, I awoke early in an 8am Calculus class at Another University to find the professor and everyone in the class looking at me. After a minute of frantically trying to figure out how to respond to what was on the black board, the professor offered the keys to his office with, "Mr. Collier, I don't mind you sleeping in my class, but your snoring is beginning to distract from the lecture. Perhaps you would like to nap on my office couch?"
Now that the story has made it to the Globe, I think Stewart cannot be far behind.
Go to the Science Center library. Find a comfortable chair. Try to read anything by Hegel. Result: instant nap. Worked every time for me.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it silly? It would be easy to provide, and would have big benefits. Making students' lives better, even in small ways, should be Harvard's priority.
ReplyDeleteNo, actually; Harvard's priority should be to improve students' education, not their comfort level. Space in the Yard is at a premium, and students can easily enough go back to their rooms for a nap--or better yet, get to bed an hour earlier.
DeleteThe recommended time for a power nap is 20 minutes. You don't walk 20 minutes to take a 20 minute nap. Most students don't have an hour to go home, take a nap, and then go back to Lamont.
ReplyDeleteThere are wars going on. People are out of work. The voting system is being manipulated. Your fellow students at other universities are graduating, if they are lucky enough to get to the end, with crushing debt. Will you be looking back at your college years with pride that you fought for the right of Harvard students to nap?
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