Reception-gate ‘08
“You know… some people are the great people…” Dean Ellwood began, standing before hundreds of irritated Kennedy School students at the JFK Presidential library last Thursday night. (I cringed slightly, wondering where this was heading.)
“… and some people are even greater.” (I winced again - uncomfortably bracing myself for the punch line.)
“You are the greater people,” he finished.
Dead. Silence.
It was awkward - even for me - and I’m not a Kennedy School student.
If you missed this speech, chances are you arrived at the JFK Presidential library before 7:30pm that night and successfully made it into a banquet hall that was stuffed 300 people over capacity, much to the displeasure of a stewing Fire Marshall.
But if, like me, you arrived just in time to claim one of the last few coat hangers, or indulge in the final showing of the biographical film about President John F. Kennedy, Jr., then you were confined to the ‘overflow room.’ But this wasn’t just any overflow room. This was a beautiful space. On any other night, we would likely have commented on the elegance of the glass-enclosed pavilion overlooking the Boston Harbor. But on this night, we could only focus on the lack of planning foresight, the freezing temperature, and the overall sense that we had been ostracized from “the great people.”
We might have been able to overlook these points (particularly the temperature one) had we been able to quaff down some wine and enjoy some food. But the madhouse surrounding the one hastily set-up table serving alcohol coupled with a woman combing over IDs like they were forgeries, precluded many people, including myself and my embarrassed date (an actual HKS student) from drowning our sorrows and enjoying ourselves.
When a food platter finally arrived, it was quickly torn to bits by what felt like hyenas gathering around a fresh kill. Famished, I joined in the madness, using my elbows for leverage. I escaped with a few pieces of bread, a hunk of cheese, and one slice of lox. Victory!
As an outsider, perhaps I had unrealistic expectations about what a Harvard Kennedy School of Government social gathering would entail. I envisioned crystal glasses overflowing with expensive champagne, and elegantly dressed people laughing crisply at tongue-in-cheek political jokes. But my lofty outlook fell hard and fast. I still have flashbacks of my date’s mortified expression and incessant apologizing: “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this is happening. I’m so, so, sorry you took a 6 hour flight for this.”
Many tried to sneak past the security guard, a thick man with an even thicker mustache, at the top of the stairs. But to no avail. We tried the old I-just-left-the-banquet-hall-for-a-minute-to-talk-to-a-friend-and-need-to-get-back-in hoax. Desperate? Perhaps. But you never know what will work. I once snuck into a world-class concert hall in Amsterdam during intermission by telling the security guard that I just wanted to take a peek at the lobby.
When we heard the Dean was coming to speak to us (the forgotten ones) some of us latched onto a glimmer of hope that his words might ease the pain. It was, after all, the most anyone had paid attention to us the whole night (except for the security guard that is).
In my experience, when something goes wrong, the best strategy is to be brutally honest, straight forward, and own up to one’s mistake. For example, a few days earlier while waiting for a table at a Japanese restaurant with friends, the host had mistakenly seated a party that had arrived after ours, first. When we confronted him about it, he simply said, “You’re right. I made a mistake.” It immediately took the piss out of us. He had acknowledged his error and asked what he could do to fix it.
Dean Ellwood took a different approach.
And it didn’t help that he followed his ‘greater people’ comments with a partisan gimmick about wearing a red or blue tie depending on the outcome of the U.S. presidential race. I cringed again, thinking about the McCain supporters in the crowd that he was likely alienating, and I later heard at his first cut at the speech to the ‘great’ people, he actually donned a George W. Bush mask. It felt very far from the type of campaign that Obama was running; it was much closer to my notion of “clinking champagne glasses and crisp laughter” or, in other words, a bad ‘Harvard cliché.’
In the end, the only authentic moment that night came from the security guard at the top of the stairs that was tasked with turning away the groups of seething Kennedy School students looking for answers.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
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When the long-awaited apology finally did arrive, via impersonal e-mail, four days later, not even from Ellwood himself, but his senior associate dean Joe McCarthy, it was less than satisfying.
Dear Students:
On behalf of the Degree Programs administration, I’d like to offer a sincere apology to those students and their guests, who could not gain entry or were delayed in gaining entry to the Dean’s Reception last Thursday. We were literally overwhelmed by the attendance, which greatly surpassed any of the prior twenty-five years in which we have been holding this event. We will take steps to see that next year’s reception can accommodate everyone.
Sincerely,
JMcC
Unlike my comrade in arms, I am a Kennedy School student - one who did attend last year’s reception and was not at all shocked by the turn out at this year’s event. Last year’s event at the state capitol building was a delight, and one of my first true evenings of bonding with my fellow HKS - then still KSG - students. I told everyone I knew what a great evening it was sure to be, and that they shouldn’t miss it.
You plan for the upper limit when hosting events, not the bottom. One of the women who restrained me from returning to the party (where I had been before mistakenly seeking to enrich myself with a walk through JFK’s life - oh yes, I had been to the land of milk and honey, or booze and lox, and was then summarily shut out) apologized by saying that they had been told to prepare for 500 people, and 800 had arrived so far. Why would you plan for only 500 when the entire HKS community and their families were invited - a number that reaches over 1000?
Unfortunately, the backlash of an event like this, followed by a delayed we’re-sorry-that-sucked-for-you-but-it-wasn’t-our-fault apology, is sure to mean that next year, Deans Ellwood and McCarthy won’t have to plan for nearly as many people to show up.
Luckily, as in past years, thanks to the KSSG activities team and a well-placed mechanical bull, the after-party was still a rollicking success. Maybe next year a better plan for the HKSer-in-the-know will simply be to gather with friends at home before hand, clink your champagne glasses full of PBR, and just roll out with your bull-riding chaps to the after party.
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