| Type | 501(c)3 non-profit |
|---|---|
| Founded | Harvard University, 1957 |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, MA, United States |
| Website | www.hsa.net |
Harvard Student Agencies Inc. (HSA) is a $6 million non-profit company, it consists of nine different agencies that are each headed by a student manager. Each agency aims to provide a different service to the Harvard community.[1]
The organization was founded in 1957 to help defray rising tuition costs while providing practical business experience and supplying services to the Harvard community.[2]
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The Harvard Shop[3] is a subsidiary of HSA, and operates two retail stores located on 52 JFK St., and in the Holyoke Centre, by Mass Avenue in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Originally purchased from former owner Paul Corcoran in 2001, the shop sells Harvard apparel and merchandise, including t-shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, sweatshirts, and gifts, to Harvard students as well as tourists visiting Harvard University.[4] Like the rest of HSA's agencies, the shop is completely student-run.[1]
HSA Cleaners is one of the founding businesses at HSA and is consistently one of its most profitable.[1] Business is concentrated on four key product areas: laundry and linen plans, dry cleaning services, and bulk linen rentals and sales, and freshman linens. The group's managers direct a staff of workers at the main office and off-site locations, HSA Cleaners operates six separate offices. Many people learn about HSA for the first time through the Cleaners.[1]
Harvard Distribution Services is the only university-authorized direct-to-student advertising medium on campus. The clientele ranges from recruiters like Goldman Sachs to pizza shops distributing coupons to students. The manager serves as a medium between the clients and the workers, who distribute to resident houses or poster around campus. Aside from gaining experience in customer service skills, the managers gain organizational skills and direct over 20 employees.[1]
Harvard Student Resources is a temporary job agency that provides a variety of services to the community, both Harvard and beyond. With over 500 student employees, HSR is the largest employer at HSA. Also under the auspices of HSR is the Harvard Bartending Course [5] and the SAT SOS prep course.[6]
HSA Publications publishes The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard and The Harvard Guide to Summer Opportunities. They are currently working to re-launch The Unofficial Guide Online Edition. The manager of publications directs an advertising sales staff while also taking several books through the entire editorial and production process.
HSA Rover is a team of mobile application developers that specializes in iOS application programming. The Rover platform was invented by a team of Harvard undergraduates - Alex Bick '10 (Engineering Sciences), Joy Ding '10 (Computer Science), Drew Robb '10 (Physics and Mathematics), Cameron Spicker '10 (Computer Science) and Winston Yan '10 (Physics) - won the campus venture track of the 2008 I3 Harvard College Innovation Challenge.[7] It was further developed in the Innovation Space, which opened last November as Harvard's first dedicated environment for experiential innovation and entrepreneurship education.[8] Rover re-packages the 2009 Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard into an easy-to-use application (“app”) for an iPhone or iPod Touch.
The Cronin Center for Enterprise was founded in 1997 to support and foster the creative business initiatives of Harvard undergraduates. Reaching an ever-growing number of Harvard students, the Center serves to bridge the gap between a liberal arts education and professional careers with the help of alumni, mentors, and corporate sponsors. As an institution dedicated to inspiring entrepreneurship and business awareness, the Center's resources are directed towards planning and funding educational forums and career development programs that include the Harvard College Innovation Challenge.[9]
The Harvard Innovation Challenge (referred to by students as i3 – Imagine, Invent and Impact) is a competition for undergrads at Harvard College who have business venture ideas. The competition is similar to the more well known HBS Business Plan Competition at the graduate level. The Innovation Challenge included three tracks: one for commercial ventures (for-profit), one for social ventures (non-profit), and lastly the TECH Prize (best senior or graduate-student team). First place winners in each track receive $10k, and will be invited to spend the summer in an Innovation Space in Harvard Square. Additional grants for $2,500 and $500 are awarded to runners up.[10]
Let's Go Travel Guides is a travel guide series started in 1960 when the introduction of affordable flights to Europe prompted a group of Harvard students to put together a 25-page pamphlet of travel tips for the student on a budget. Working under the auspices of HSA, Let's Go eventually grew to be one of the world's most widely recognized travel publications. At its peak, the budget series hired over 150 students each year to travel to dozens of countries to completely revise and update its many titles. Hiring for Editors, Research Managers, and Researcher-Writers occurs at the beginning of the second academic semester.
As of 2011, there are 60 titles in the series. The most recent guides cover Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, Israel, and Asia and the Pacific. These guides range from country guides to adventure, city, roadtrip, and budget guides, many of which are updated annually.