When Jim Vorenberg '48 lived in Leverett House during his senior year, he went to one master's sherry and says "the master's role made no impact on me." Now, as co-master of Dunster House, Harvard Law School Professor James Vorenberg says the best part of being a master is "the ability to try to make a difference in the lives of a lot of people."

James and Elizabeth (Betty) Vorenberg have headed Dunster House since since 1973. (Betty was made co-master in 1974.) They were in Paris last spring on sabbatical, while David and Ann Landes served as acting co-masters. However, the Vorenbergs flew home for Commencement to see the first class which had come to Dunster with the Vorenbergs graduate, and to hold tea for those seniors--an event which Betty Vorenberg says is the only requirement mentioned when they began the mastership.

"There has never been any description of what a master does, so it is hard for anyone coming in to know what to do," Betty Vorenberg says. However, she believes a certain amount of freedom in defining the position must be preserved: "There has to be a balance between people who give you guidelines and also enough autonomy to make the job interesting."

"On some things, there should be more guidance," her husband adds. "We had to spend too much of our first years fighting our way through B&G and other parts of the administrative bureaucracy to get what the House ought to have. The failure to systematize that leads to inefficiency."

Guidance or not, the Vorenbergs have tried a multitude of ways to bring students, tutors and masters together. As a result, they say they have a good sense of who is in the House. One advantage, Betty Vorenberg says, is Dunster's small size. Another, her husband adds, is that "Betty has a marvelous grasp on students' names."

They both emphasize the importance of the dining room, as the "unifying force in the House," as Jim Vorenberg says. The Vorenbergs eat four or five meals each week in the Dunster dining hall, and when Jim Vorenberg gets home late from the Law School, he says he often sits down in the dining hall with a cup of coffee to chat with students.

In planning House gatherings, Betty Vorenberg says "we never do anything the same. We've tried all sorts of things, and we don't have a schedule at all. With 350 students, they're all very different, so we've done different things in the hopes that during the course of the year everyone will want to come to something."

Especially popular, Vorenberg says, have been late-night pizza open houses during reading period, buffets combined with speakers, and small dinners with groups of upperclassmen and members of the Senior Common Room.

They both speak with insiders' enthusiasm about "House traditions," whether ancient or not--the coffee held by tutors on Monday nights, the annual Senior Common Room-students touch football ("they feel so affronted when the old fogies beat them--and we have on occasion," says Vorenberg with a grin), three concerts in the library every weekend, and especially the "superb grill." "Betty and I go down to the grill a couple of nights a week for a hamburger," Vorenberg says.

Then, becoming more philosophical, he adds, "The important thing is that we do not see ourselves as running a lot of activities. We create opportunities for students to run activities in the House."

The Vorenbergs have strong feelings about the role of tutors in Dunster House. "A really good House does not depend on the master's handling every problem," says Jim Vorenberg. "It depends on really good tutors in the House, and we have directed ourselves to that concern."

Betty Vorenberg says she's proud of the story she heard recently: When a Dunster tutor informed a friend of his House affiliation, the latter exclaimed: "Oh, you're a Dunster House tutor! You must work really hard."

Dunster's co-masters share administrative duties, attendance at monthly meetings, and entertainment. Betty Vorenberg believes strongly that the practice of naming co-masters is "essential. It is an enormous change, which makes gaining some recognition much easier. There has been a change in the way the administration looks at the spouses, which has helped enormously in getting the job done. The job is so extensive that if you don't share it, you can't do it right."

Because of the heavy turnover in masterships in recent years, the Vorenbergs count themselves as "old-timers," although they've only been masters since 1973. Vorenberg says he "isn't sure the job has become less popular," but if it has he thinks one of the reasons may be over-involvement in the choosing process by students. He thinks students should participate by "saying the kind of person they want, but students living in a House know a limited number of faculty members, and to think they can necessarily pick the best person is an illusion."

The other reason, Vorenberg says, is reduction in masters' discretion in some areas. He hastens to add that he believes that trend is a plus--especially the elimination of master's choice. However, reduced discretion "has been accompanied by an enormous amount of red tape. In a way it makes the job less attractive because the masters are less than lords of the manor. I think it's an improvement, but some of the old-time masters would be horrified. It's right that (mastership) not be a kind of little fiefdom."