When Mather House residents arrived for classes this year, they found their quarters more than cramped. Some sophomores for example, were so squeezed that they were forced to bunk in storage closets. Wanting to prevent a similar situation from recurring, the College will try again this spring to change the way they allocate housing space.
An annual focus of attention among housing officials, the allocation formula is based on a tricky combination of past trends, current space, and guesswork. The latter, not surprisingly, is the hardest part, basically a prediction of how many students in a particular House will decide to take a leave the following year. When those doing the guessing miss the mark--even by a small number--the already crowded Houses suffer. A few years ago, North House got squeezed. This year, Mather got crunched.
While redistributing the crowding throughout the system should ease Mather's burden, officials say the crowding problems will continue unless the total number of students housed on campus is cut. Without really saying so, officials hope to achieve that goal with a new plan to address several related issues--the needs of transfer students, the status of Dudley House, and the desires of off-campus students for adequate advising and other services.
Among other things, the complex proposal would seek to make off-campus life more palatable for every undergraduate not choosing to live in one of the 12 residential Houses. For transfer students, traditionally left "floating" on arrival because they can't immediately move into a House, the University may block off a set of its area apartments as a mini House community, complete with resident tutors.
Most of all, officials hope that a stronger Dudley House, the key to the plan, will allay the fears of current House residents considering moving to a Cambridge apartment. Bolstering Dudley may mean, at least, forcing more students who move off campus to shift their affiliation to Dudley, rather than stick with their original House.
Critics of the changes, scheduled for final review soon, cite the failure of extensive efforts two years ago to solve a set of housing problems strikingly similar to those now on the table.
Student-Faculty Contact
One of the longest-standing sources of criticism about Harvard is the perceived gap between undergraduates and faculty members. The complaint lack of "contact." Whether such a gap actually exists, what its nature may be, and how to bridge it are matters slated for continued discussion within the College this spring.
Following on the heels of a recent report documenting cases of student reluctance to initiate contact with faculty--be it through office hours, informal chats or even meals--officials this year took several steps to remedy the situation. One move was starting a program providing free tickets to students wishing to invite a faculty member to dinner, chez Harvard Food Services. If as a byproduct, officials believed, more faculty members became acquainted with students and the Houses, then perhaps the anxiety-gap could be narrowed.
As it turns out, officials say, response to the availability of tickets has been positive, though exact numbers are unavailable. Whether the plan has had its intended effect is another matter, one that may be answered in the results to yet another survey. The College will take a look this spring at a random sampling of undergraduates and faculty conducted during the fall, aimed at determining why both groups seem, on average, cold to the idea of initiating contact. The poll may provide a statistical base for more efforts along the line of the meal-ticket program, or other, more substantive changes to increase and improve the quality of contact between students and faculty.