Jack’s book, “The Privileged Poor,” is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with students at a fictional prestigious university - referred to as “Renowned” in his book. Jack published a book that grappled with that very question. It made him feel like Harvard was telling him “that this particular group - FCU people - they don’t deserve or need the dorms to be cleaned for them, but that the incoming class does.” He wondered, “Why aren’t we treated with the same equity as the rest of the class that’s moving in?”Ī few months before Murdock moved into Canaday, Harvard Graduate School of Education assistant professor Anthony A. He started to think it was a little odd - “a little awkward” - that the University wanted the rest of the student body to arrive to freshly cleaned dorms, while the Fall Clean-Up participants arrived to dirty ones.

Murdock began by wiping up the stain, taking out the trash, clearing the bathroom.

He did not expect to have to clean his own room, too. Murdock was prepared to get dorms ready for his classmates. He left home for Harvard five days early to participate in a pre-orientation program called Fall Clean-Up, or FCU, in which freshmen are paid $13.50 an hour to clean dorms before the rest of the student body arrives. Murdock is from Bay Shore, Long Island, a small hamlet beside the sea. This was the first room Samuel Murdock ’23 slept in at Harvard. The dorm was seemingly untouched since the summer school students had left. In the common room, a large, sticky stain of spilled soda spread across the floor. Old bottles of shampoo were left empty in the sink. Garbage was strewn across the bathroom floor.

Feeling Left Behind by Kim Murdock