It is also difficult to fit the married man into Dudley or University activities. For the large majority of the 40 married commuters attached to Dudley did not have previous residence in one of the houses. To enhance the prestige of Dudley and bring the married men closer together, one Alumni suggestion is to require all married students to use Dudley facilities, rather than let them become "courtesy non-residents" of the houses. Though the idea may be sound, the students moving out of the houses simply don't want what they consider "the low prestige, and the second rate common room at Dudley,"--as one "courtesy member" told his House Master.
Close College Ties
In a continuing attempt to bring more of the commuters within the circle of college activities, Whitlock has been a fervent advocate of recent features that give the commuter better access to the University and its officials. He has promised to find more bunk room if the demand is excessively large during exams, and has promoted Concentration Dinners and Career Conferences for the commuter. To help the Freshman, a grant from a special fund provides a limited number of coupon tickets for evening meals in the Union, so the needy student can afford to attend evening activities. Most recently, Whitlock helped start the drive to win tutorial for the science major, "The commuting science student is at somewhat of a disadvantage," Whitlock said. "Living at home often makes it impossible for him to meet members of the faculty." As a trial solution, Whitlock recently invited Dudley's science majors to join any one of the humanities tutorials. Other Senior Tutors have joined in praising Whitlock for his expanded program, and are seriously considering the plan for their own houses.
Several more additions in the past few years have helped bolster the status of the Center. Instead of running at a deficit on a separate listing, Dudley has operated like any other department included in the University budget since the start of the Senior Tutor plan in '52. And the $20 fee for all upper classmen ahs provided needed cash for the library fund. Just as important for prestige, although less tangible, was the addition of three members from the Board of Overseers as Honorary Associates of Dudley Hall: Robert F. Bradford '23, former Governor of Massachusetts; Joseph S. Clark Jr. '23, Major of Philadelphia; and William L. White, a noted writer. But the impact of all these improvements ahs not, as yet, been forceful enough to completely knock away the stigma long attached to the commuter.
As early as 1932 the Alumni Bulletin ran an article on the commuters called "The Untouchables," at that time a totally neglected 28% of the college. The depression slump had tightened about the commuting student and offered him little opportunity to escape into Lowell's house system, then beginning to boom. Although several alumni suggested an integration of the commuters into the houses as non-resident members, a lunchroom opened in the basement of Phillips Brooks House. But the crowded, hot, and messy corner was soon called "The Black Hole of Calcutta."
Burr Donation
Not until 1934 did Allston Burr '89 donate 37-year-old Dudley Hall to the commuters. Boarded up for the previous two years after serving as Freshman living quarters, the building was in poor condition. Unfortunately, Burr did not include funds for the Hall's upkeep, and only after twenty years have the facilities reached any, where near to the adequate mark. But the building was better than the continual jostling the commuters received when they had no location of their own.
The Hall originally and a huge center court reaching to the top of the building. An alumni who recently revisited Deadly was disappointed to find the first level sealed off from the rest of the court by a stone ceiling. "We pushed a plane off from the fourth floor once," he remarked, "just to watch in smash in what's now your living room." For a long period the available furniture came close to matching the piano, and the commuter found more fashionable surroundings in the "Day Rooms" provided at his expense in the houses. The pressure of the post war increase in students, however, forced a retreat of the commuter back to Dudley. Finally in 1951, Dean Bender admitted for the University, "We've neglected the commuter." Additional space came with the utilization of Apley Court two years later. A 57-year-old creation of the famous Gold Coast, Apley is now an unusual combination of collaborate architecture and a functional interior.
Houses Overcrowded
If for no other reason, the lack of bedrooms in the house system has prevented serious consideration of absorbing all the commuters into the house as full members. In '51, therefore, Dean Bender's committee on advising recommended that "all upper class commuters should be assigned to cat in the Houses, and to participate fully in the educational and social life of the Houses." But the integration plan received more talk than action, and the idea slipped from immediate consideration when Dean Leighton' Report for '52-'53 set up the Non-Resident Commuter's Center "palled to the seven Houses...an eighth house for administrative purposes." A week ago there was Student Council sign in Dudley that read "one representative will be elected from each house and Dudley." Inked on the card was the line: "I though Dudley was a house."
The reaction of the Dudley commuters has been a gradually changing set of likes and dislikes. Three years ago the CRIMSON polled the commuter and found that none liked their situation, that some despised it. They missed what they considered the "companionship and excitement of the dorms," but had "no great affection for the either the Administration or the resident students." A year and half later both Dudley's facilities and the commuter's attitude had changed.
Whitlock had wiped the dust off Dudley's hidden potential, ad the commuter responded by unleashing his feeling of independence and spirit. A vote taken by the Student Council in the Spring of '53 revealed that 223 students preferred membership in the Commuter's Center as opposed to the seven who wanted non-resident membership in the house system. And only three selected a renovated Dudley over the choice of an entirely new center.
The poll of last week, however, showed another definite shift in the commuter's feeling. Over 20 percent now favor non-resident house membership, 40 percent a new Center, and 37 percent prefer remodeling and improving Dudley. An interesting discovery was what the idea of a "Dudley spirit" does not firmly establish itself until the commuter's senior year.
Possible Integration
These figures might encourage the Administration members who believe the best path for the commuter is eventual integration into the houses as non-resident members. Not only have the improvements in Dudley in the last three years brought greater awareness of the advantages in living at college--with the resulting decline in commuters--but it has also modified the outlook of the Dudley students. Once completely ignored, the commuter now feels slighted. Once it was impossible to compare Dudley with any of the houses; now the commuter tends to exaggerate the slowly closing gap between the two. As a result, conditions seem worse and the effect is often depressing. The solution seems theoretically simple to those advocating non-resident membership with the houses. If the commuter is given connection with a house, then the problem of letting him "rub elbows with undergraduates from all sections of the country" is presumably resolved. As Dean Bender said, "It is basically unsound to isolate a group on an economic or geographic basic."