Former Eliot Master Alan E. Heimert '49 has never been an advocate of major changes in Harvard, an institution he first arrived at almost 50 years ago.

When other house masters pushed for the non-ordered choice system in 1989, he opposed it.

When the College imposed a new restrictive alcohol policy in 1990, he reportedly explained to House residents, "Those gutless cowards up in the Yard want to take away your booze."

And when he realized that he could not prevent permanent change in the character of House life, he quit--and last Spring, spent $14,000 on the Eliot Fete.

Heimert, who lorded over Eliot House for 23 years, has retired to a comfortable room in the History and Literature concentration office, but still believes that the "old" ways of College life are the best.

"Maybe I just don't have the knack to keep the old alive anymore and to resist some of these changes," says Heimert, who has chaired the History department, English department, and the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature. "In a way, I felt I was in a situation where I was spending most of my time trying to fight off what I thought were bad things instead of being able to concentrate my energies on what I thought was good."

Heimert led the campaign against the non-ordered choice system, which was instituted in 1989. He remains a strong advocate of the system of "master's choice," which ended in 1973.

Heimert claims House life was far more diverse under master's choice than under ranked preferences or non-ordered choice.

Under this scheme, masters interviewed and selected future residents on the basis of quotas defined by concentration, academic rank and secondary school background.

"One slice was for area of concentration so that one house wouldn't have all the humanists or all the scientists," Heimert says. "Another slice was according to probable rank so that one house wouldn't get all the dumb people and the other all the summas."

In addition, the system differentiated between students who attended "select" private schools such as Groton and St. Paul's, which traditionally sent many students to Harvard, and other secondary schools.

The College set a 60 percent "preppie" quota in order to prevent "a house becoming the house of the rich people and another house the house of the poor people," says Heimert.

Heimert rejects charges that the master's choice system was racist and elitist, insisting that it was successful because masters sought a healthy house environment.

He claims the one-year experiment with randomization in 1966 was an "utter failure."

"It was a disaster," he says. "I have often thought that the fact that the class of 1969 had been randomized had something to do with the big revolution in the spring of '69."