Fun's Expediter

Zac Corker Harvard News Office Styled "Harvard's Fun Czar" by Reuters and CNN, Zac Corker '04 sits in his University Hall...

Zac Corker
Harvard News Office

Styled "Harvard's Fun Czar" by Reuters and CNN, Zac Corker '04 sits in his University Hall office and explains that his actual job title -- "special assistant to the dean for social programming" -- is far more sober. A popular undergraduate whose classmates elected him a class marshal in their senior year, Corker became a social lion, though, by helping launch www.hahvahdparties.com, an on-line guide to weekend revelry in the Houses. As a senior, he helped with social planning on the Mather House Council and Senior Class Committee; when some College events ran up against city rules, he noticed that there wasn't much support available from the College.

"I wrote a letter suggesting creating a position to assist students with campus-wide social events," Corker says, "and I volunteered to fill it." He started work in the fall: setting up the mega-tailgate party before The Game and a successful interhouse dodgeball tournament in December (there was even a decanal entry). Corker will join the Peace Corps this fall, but the job he invented will continue as a presidential fellowship, filled annually by a new Harvard graduate. "Doing this depends on having a connection with the students," he explains. "I could do it one more year, but after that I wouldn't know any of the kids. Pretty soon, I'd be 26 and thinking like an administrator."

 

Most popular

Why Men Are Falling Behind in Education, Employment, and Health

Can new approaches to education address a growing gender gap?

The Franklin Stove—A Historical Climate Change Adaptation

Historian Joyce E. Chaplin reinterprets an early era of invention, industrialization, and climate challenge

The 1884 Cannibalism-at-Sea Case That Still Has Harvard Talking

The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens changed the course of legal history. Here’s why it’s been fodder for countless classroom debates.

Explore More From Current Issue

A football player kicking a ball while another teammate holds it on the field.

A Near-Perfect Football Season Ends in Disappointment

A loss to Villanova derails Harvard in the playoffs. 

An axolotl with a pale body and pink frilly gills, looking directly at the viewer.

Regenerative Biology’s Baby Steps

What axolotl salamanders could teach us about limb regrowth

Black and white photo of a large mushroom cloud rising above the horizon.

Open Book: A New Nuclear Age

Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy’s latest book looks at the rising danger of a new arms race.