Nowadays, at least a Harvard, "People do not apply to be masters. Professors do not look for administrative responsibility," Fox adds.

House Seminars

There are examples, though, of a counter-trend. For example, recent pressure for House academic activities has revived the issue of masters' autonomy.

The Undergraduate Council proposed this year that each House or group of Houses offer sections for large Core courses. Some masters, though, say they would rather offer unique House seminars.

John F. Dowling, professor of Biology and Master of Leverett House, explains that a House seminar is an expression of a House's individual character and allows students to meet the members of the House's Senior Common Room--a hierarchy of faculty, emeriti, and tutors appointed by the Master.

In fact, in the wake of the stripping of power since the '60s, the Senior Common Room is considered by many masters to be the area where they have the greatest effect on the House environment.

But Gomes says that with a five-year term, the master can never gain enough autonomy to run the House properly. "The effect of the five-year rule for masters if it is a rule--has been chilling. Five years barely allows a master to undo whatever damage he inherited," the Lowell House Senior Common Room member says.

Working within these constraints, Gomes adds, masters have lost touch with their affiliates and come increasingly to serve as virtual caterers and hotel managers. Mary Lee Bossert, co-master of Lowell House, says that she entertains in the masters' residence at least three times a week, and the same is true to a lesser extent at other Houses.

Alan Heimert, Cabot Professor of American Literature and the last of the lifetime masters, has been at Eliot House since 1967. He says that co-residency in the Houses increased student participation in--and their expectations of--masters functions. "There were 12 people at Open Houses before co-residency. Now 400 show up," he says. "Co-residency has made the Houses more cohesive, but also more social than educational," he adds.

Preprofessionalism

The rise of preprofessionalism--with the ensuing bundle of letters to be written for students applying to graduate schools--has affected masters as well as students. Fox says he feels that the situation fosters among students "a greater concern for getting out of the Houses than with living in them."

The plethora of tutors which each House appoints to write these letters has taken away from the masters' role in this process. Up until the 1960s, according to Thomas A. Dingman '67, assistant dean of housing and senior tutor of Leverett, the master was the one who took it upon himself to recommend seniors for jobs in firms, often firms run by graduates of the same House.

A University report's review of letter-writing pays tribute to Finley's prodigious output, while recognizing that the letter-writing master is a disappearing breed. "One person who every admissions office in the country knew was John Finley, whose letters were famous for their length and eloquence," the report said.

Maintenance

To match the boom in graduate school applications, which practically doubled from 1957 to 1967, the Houses brought in more pre-law and pre-medical tutors. In addition, the creation of the Allston Burt senior tutors in 1953 established the central administration in each House office, again detracting from the educational role of the masters.