The Yard Magazine

Harvard Community Welcomes Lucky Class of 2013

For some, the number 13 is a harbinger of doom, synonymous with black cats and broken mirrors. For this year’s incoming class, however, the digits have lost their power to jinx.

“Thirteen is a magical number. You are proof of that,” Harvard President Drew Faust told the Class of 2013 at the University’s first-ever Freshman Convocation, held on September 1 in the Tercentenary Theatre the day before classes began.

Until this year, Harvard had sponsored Opening Exercises, a modest indoor ceremony that also included music, singing, and speeches by Harvard’s top administrators. But despite everything that occasion provided, the ceremony lacked alumni participation and the kind of pomp and circumstance associated with Commencement—the other ceremonial “bookend” to students’ time at Harvard.

“Before, people assembled, but it wasn’t very dramatic. We want the event to fire them up,” Dean of Freshman Thomas Dingman said. A 2005 Report of the Freshman Orientation Advisory Committee proposed a convocation ceremony as a way of making students’ first days more welcoming and festive.

The goal of creating a more memorable introduction finally took shape that sunny afternoon. Students gathered around the Yard according to dorm. Alumni, who had come to participate as marshals, handed out class pins to wear and to keep, courtesy of the Harvard Alumni Association. When the time came, marshals led the students into the Theatre amid music from the Harvard Band and raucous cheers from current upperclass students.

Once attendees were seated, University leaders urged students to take risks over the next four years, and to challenge themselves both inside and outside the classroom. They told the class that it was natural to feel a bit nervous.

Olivia Weeks, an 18-year-old from Corning, New York, admitted that she was in awe of becoming a Harvard student. “I still can’t believe I’m a part of this,” she gushed—but that any feelings of apprehension had mostly dissipated thanks to those she has encountered since setting foot on campus.

“Most of the people I’ve met have been very kind and humble,” she said, just before darting off for the ensuing class photo.

Administrators also put the number 13 in historical context. Dingman noted that the Class of 2013 is actually the fourth Harvard class whose graduation year ends with the number 13. Faust told the students about the Class of 1913, who achieved greatness despite having “an unusual tendency to make noises and to throw food,” according to records from that time. One alumnus from that class played a major role in diabetes research, and another became President John F. Kennedy’s Latin America adviser.

Regardless of what they may go on to do, however, this time the new students began their years at Harvard with a proper sendoff from the alumni community. Roughly 80 alumni marshals of all ages were on hand, having traveled from as far away as Norway and Puerto Rico, and having graduated as long ago as 1950. As alumni, many of those marshals had interviewed members of the incoming class who had come from the same area.

Marcus Miller ’08, a professional musician from Brooklyn, said he came because he never saw much connection between students and alumni when he was at Harvard, and he wanted to play a role in changing that with the new class.

“I jumped at the chance,” Miller said. “I cleared all my sessions for the day.”