"Last year for the first time," says Nora S. McCauley '91, "I talked to people who weren't excited to be here." At the Adams House Waltz, she says, when she asked rising sophomores if they were glad to be living there, "it was the first time I ever heard 'no,' which I thought boded very poorly for house spirit."

Non-ordered choice has created a rift between sophomores who were randomized and non-randomized seniors and juniors, several residents say.

"The difference between the junior class and the sophomore class," says Richard E. Robbins '91, "is the sophomore class seems very fragmented. I think there's definitely less of a community in Adams House than there used to be, and I can't see that turning around."

"The sophomores are so nondescript. They have beer partries. It's wretched. It's miserable. It's [randomization] just like this big blender where everything is mixed up in a beer barrel. This gets my goat," says Khakasa Wapenyi '92.

"These people are babies," says Tanya S.J. Selvaratnam '92 of the randomized Adams residents. "They can't talk, they don't know where they want to live...we are soon to be surrounded by racists, bigots and homophobics, just like we have in Winthrop and Kirkland House, and I'm not paying almost $8000 a year for my living conditions to be shuffled in shit."

"We're not babies," she continues. "We know where we want to live, and it's not with you," she says.

Since Adams has been infused with non-ordered choice, says Nalini P. Kotamraju '92, the security of Adams's "space" won't be as easy to find. "If you were gay, if you were into women's issues, you could come here and feel comfortable," she says. Now that sense of comfort is diminishing, Kotamraju says.

Kirkland House

Adams House is not the only house that non-ordered choice has changed. Kirkland, too, is a different place than it used to be, many residents agree.

"When I first came into Kirkland House," says Beth Wambach '91, "it seemed like every person was a varsity athlete. Now it's definitely more diverse. There are people with all sorts of extracurricular activities, and it just makes for a different atmosphere."

Kirkland's senior tutor, Garth O. McCavana, agrees that there is "a different feel to the house" this year. "The numbers of athletes are pretty much the same in this year's sophomore class. We have a different spread of sports, however," he says.

But McCavana says that he has not heard specific complaints from students about the effects of non-ordered choice on Kirkland. "Nobody's really come up to me and said, 'I hate what this is doing to the house.'"

Nevertheless, there are Kirkland residents who much prefer the former housing system to non-ordered choice, in light of what the present system is doing to Kirkland's character.

"If anything, it's contracted the number of people that I meet because they're so different from me that I don't want to meet them," one senior says. "If people want diversity so bad, they can seek it some-where else," he continues.

"If you compare this house to what it was our sophomore year, it's completely different," says Julie P. Hopkins '91.