In recent years, Pforzheimer House attracted a large minority and pre-med population which has, in turn, shaped the house's character.

But in the age of randomization, building a community--even in the smallest house on campus--will mean more than having an MCAT study break or hosting Black Students Association events in the dining hall.

And although as much as 60 percent of the senior class has been pre-med and the house boasts "a very large minority community," according to Co-master Hanna Hastings, building a community not centered on any particular group will not be as difficult as when she first began.

"I don't think [building a community is] going to be harder here than anywhere else," says Hastings, who announced that she and her husband, Mangelsdorf Professor of Natural Sciences J. Woodland Hastings '66, will be retiring as co-masters at the end of this semester.

For Pforzheimer House, randomization is a case of history repeating itself.

Although Pforzheimer has been a top choice among students for nearly a decade, Hanna Hastings remembers a time when living at then-North House was scorned by students.

"At one point, the kids listed the 12 houses and we were 13th," says Hastings of the time in the early 1970s before the University completed a $38 million Quad renovation. "There were years when actually no one chose to live here. So we were totally random."

Looking into the future, Hastings says that it will be far easier to build a cohesive community next year than it was under the old system of de facto randomization.

In those years, every student initially did not want to live in North, says Hastings.

But, smiling, she adds that "by the end of the year, most of them wouldn't live anywhere else."

Hastings and her husband say that during the early 1970s they and the tutors built a community by meeting with students in small, informal settings.

The Hastings' attempts to reach out to students marked the beginning of faculty dinners, now a longstanding tradition in every house.

The Hastings would host small brunches in their house with roughly 30 students so that each resident could have a chance to meet the masters in an intimate setting at least once.

"We'd get a group of 10 [students] and go for walks out to the lakes," says Woody Hastings, adding that house residents would often join him for bike rides as well.

Despite the masters' efforts to build house spirit, it was until after the renovations that North became popular.