Whether these suggestions will be implemented depends upon the results of a pending financial analysis conducted by the committee.

"One of our main concerns is that we want to be able to provide these services without increasing the board rate for students," Parsons says.

A Unifying Influence?

While the $25 million center is not expected to open until the 1995-96 school year, students and faculty members have already contemplated possible effects the commons may have on campus life.

"Harvard College is undeniably somewhat devoid of unifying institutions," says Malcoin A. Heinicke '93, who was chair of the Undergraduate Council last fall when plans for the commons were first formally publicized.

"The houses were not designed to isolate students from one another," he says, "but to serve as places where people could come together, meet, eat and be social."

Students may not eat all meals in their respective houses if alternative dining privileges become available to them under their board contracts, but Heinicke says he does not worry that fewer meals together will weaken the bonds of housemates.

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles agrees that the commons will not hurt house life. "It's an added amenity, not a competing one," he says.

He adds that the commons will also serve members of the Harvard community who are not students.

"This is not a student center, this is the local commons," Knowles says. "It won't hurt the houses because it's a place that is partly for freshmen and upperclass students, but also for teaching fellows and faculty."

Parsons says that he conceives of the project as "affirming the house structure rather than undermining it by providing a place where freshmen can feel that they belong, like the upperclassmen can in their houses."

"It's almost as though we are completing the house project with this addition," Parsons adds.

Questions have been raised, however, as to whether, given its proximity to the Yard, the commons will serve as something of a "first year house."

While members of the entire University community will probably take advantage of the commons during the day because of its proximity to the Yard, first-year students may utilize the space more at night and on week-ends for the same reason, says Parsons.

"One of our priorities in the planning of this project was the creation of a space that will integrate freshmen more quickly into life at Harvard," he says.