Climaxing a week of controversy and confusion, Brandeis University is expected to announce this morning that it has decided against curtailing its parietal hours. At the same time, however, the University will probably institute provisions for much stricter enforcement of the regulations.
Kermit Morrissey, Dean of Students at Brandeis, said last night in a message to the Student Council that "there will be no termination of the existing regulations and no time change," according to Council president Vic Hausner. A comprehensive statement on the status of the parietal regulations will be issued by Morrissey at 10:30 a.m. today.
Earlier this week the faculty resident of the North Quadrangle dormitories at Brandeis had predicted that "much tougher rules," probably including sharp time reductions, would be announced by the administration in the near future.
Student reaction was immediate and extreme. Along with rumors that "open house hours would be cut to three hours on Sunday afternoon came student threats of "slepe-ins" and violent demonstrations.
The Brandeis Student Council, in a discussion last night, scheduled a meeting of the entire student body for next Wednesday to discuss the general issue of "social responsibility in the student community." Calmed by Morrissey's advance notice of today's statement, the Council also called for a "continuing dialogue" about parietal hours and for more extensive publication of all dormitory regulations and possible punishments.
Also at issue is a two-year-old student petition for weekday parietal hours. In an editorial Tuesday, the Justice, the Brandeis student weekly, said the petition had turned into a "plaque of mold" and called for liberalization of the rules.
Prominent among the week's rumors has been the suggestion that Brandeis' possible curtailment of hours is part of a general movement among oston area coleges. Dean Watson said yesterday, however, that no such arrangement is feasible, since the problem is different at every college. "Harvard doesn't play 'follow the leader' in situations like this," he said.
Morrissey last night expressed a hope that his pronouncement today will and the confusion at the Waltham campus. "It is a source of continual amasement to me," he said, "that students can be more concerned about this issue than any other."
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