"We give them the responsibility for leading these communities, and they're the ones with the information to make these decisions."
Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 said although universal keycard access works well at Yale, a one-size-fits-all decision may not be appropriate at Harvard.
"The Houses are architecturally distinctive and the same system may not be suitable everywhere," he said.
"Many of the houses have their entry- Appealing to the Masters Stewart said she was able to move the trialplan forward by recognizing the masters' autonomyand seeking their individual consent. In the past, she said, the council and otherstudent groups sought to achieve access throughunilateral reform. But administrators have been unwilling to stepon the toes of House masters by mandating suchexperimentation. "Individual Houses have primary control overaccess policies for their Houses," Lewis wrote inan e-mail message. Stewart also said the trial plan will injectsome much needed information into the debate. While house masters and students have tradedarguments on how to preserve safety and a sense ofcommunity, she said they have often lacked thedata to back up their claims. "Our theory was that we needed to get somesolid data, and so we'd do a one-year experimentin house traffic," said Stewart Those familiar with the plan said much of thecredit for its approval belongs to Stewart. "Beth Stewart has worked very hard to make thishappen," Dingman said. He said another importantfigure in making the plan work was AssociateDirector for Building Services in the Office ofPhysical Resources Robert L. Mortimer. "I think that Beth has put in a tremendousnumber of hours talking one-on-one with masters,lobbying them, and making the case for keycardaccess," Nelson said. But while many said they praised Stewart'sleadership, others felt left out of the loop. Read more in News
