"Forty-seven was a good study--it was on the first floor. But it was a smaller study, and now I'm on the top floor," Williams says.

An ad hoc committee of faculty and administrators chaired by Coolidge Professor of History and Professor of Economics David S. Landes was convened for the sole purpose of considering the justice of the policy for allocating the studies. The committee, which met throughout the 1986-87 school year, decided to enforce the existing policy of assigning studies in order of the waiting list, according to Bailey.

A Professor's Castle

Only five Harvard faculty members and administrators traditionally enjoy free housing. Bok, Spence, Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner, the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, and Divinity School Dean Ronald Thiemann all live rent-free.

Most of the University's professors do not have the opportunity to live in the traditional yellow Sparks House or Bok's mansion on Elmwood Ave. The select few professors who become house masters also inhabit grand houses designed for entertaining, but the remainder must face the perils of the Cambridge housing market.

Since the Cambridge area has one of the highest costs of living in the country, sometimes it takes substantial incentives to convince professors at other schools to leave inexpensive, comfortable homes within walking distance of their offices.

As the cost of Cambridge real estate has skyrocketed in recent years, Harvard has stepped up its efforts to ease housing problems for incoming faculty--one of the most essential services Harvard provides.

Professor of Economics Robert J. Barro, who left the University of Rochester last year to come to Harvard, says that he would not have been able to buy the house he now inhabits in Weston without Harvard's help. "The housing market here is much more expensive than where I came from," he says.

Each of the University's nine faculties has the option of establishing a housing subsidy program specifically designed to meet its recruitment needs. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers a mortgage subsidy program to help senior faculty members recruited from other schools to buy houses comparable to the ones they previously owned.

"This lets them buy a house that is reasonably comparable to the one that the faculty member had at the place he came from," says Associate Dean of the Faculty for Finance Candace R. Corvey. "We try to neutralize the potential disadvantages that someone coming to Harvard could encounter."

"I wouldn't have come to Harvard without the housing program," says Professor of Physics Gerald Gabrielse, who left the faculty at the University of Washington last fall. Gabrielse was able to buy a house in Lexington with the mortagage subsidy plan. "It wouldn't have been possible for me to live here otherwise," he says.

For a few years beginning in 1978, Harvard offered two University-wide programs that helped senior faculty members buy houses from Harvard or in the Cambridge area by providing low-interest mortgages. Some tenure track professors at schools such as the Law School also reaped benefits from these programs. Former Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg bought a Cambridge house with subsidies from Harvard before receiving tenure from the Law School.

In 1982, after the University ended its housing programs, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences established its first mortgage subsidy plan. In the last six years, the program has become more flexible, tailoring subsidies to individual needs.

"We have found from our experience in recruiting that if we aren't able to address very individual situations, we could be in danger of losing the best possible person," Corvey says. "The equity considerations are a priority. It isn't one package."

Corvey uses the location of housing as an example of individualized issues. Some people were accustomed to living within walking distance of campus, while others preferred to live in the country. All of these preferences are factors in considering what is "comparable" for each incoming professor.