Dowling said the current system of non-ordered choice has prevented diversity from flourishing in the houses.

"The masters feel keenly that each house should be a microcosm of the College, and an important part of the Harvard education is that students should educate themselves in terms of diversity," Dowling said. "The current system is a compromise which has not worked well enough."

But Kiely, who has been Adams House co-master for 22 years, said forcing diversity upon students through randomization is not an appropriate solution.

"I think it's a bad idea," Kiely said. "I'm certainly in favor of diversity in the houses. I feel this can come along better if students want it. To try to force that is not a good idea."

Bossert said he supports randomization not necessarily because it increases diversity but because it will make students' first-year experiences more meaningful.

"I would love for this not to disrupt the freshman year as much as it does," said Bossert, who has been Lowell House co-master for 20 years. "[First-years] should be spending a lot of time going to departmental offices researching concentrations."

In addition, at last Wednesday's meeting, the masters proposed reducing the maximum size of a first-year blocking group from twenty students to eight students.

"Those occasional blocks of 18 can skew the constituency of the house," Shinagel said.

During the COCL/COHL meeting, Jewett said reducing the size of blocking groups could appease some masters' demands for more diverse houses.

"Maybe if changing the block size made a huge change, people wouldn't be as inclined to go to randomization," Jewett said.

Bossert said reducing the size of blocking groups may be the only alternative to randomization.

"If we don't go to eight, random assignment is almost a certainty," Bossert said.

But COHL member Serena L. Davila '95 said reducing blocking groups may lead to hurt feelings among first-years.

"I would feel that you would be limiting how people would feel about living with people," Davila said.

At a meeting Monday night, members of the Undergraduate Council's student affairs committee, responding to the concerns of the masters, recommended reducing the maximum size of a block to 16, said Justin C. Label '97, the committee's chair.