The issue of overcrowding was important enoughto merit a guest appearance by Dean of the FacultyJeremy R. Knowles at the monthly Council ofMasters meeting that took place March 10. But theunited front the Masters presented was still notenough to convince Knowles as to the source of theovercrowding issue.

"I am concerned about crowding though I do notnecessarily understand how it has become worsebecause since I have become dean, Harvard Collegenumbers have remained steady," Knowles said.

While Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68says the College population is up slightly thisyear, he adds that the numbers are still in-linewith historical figures. A decision made severalyears ago to increase the size of the first-yearclass, according to Dean of Freshmen ElizabethStudley Nathans, was counterbalanced by anagreement to decrease the number of transferstudents the College admits.

Lewis says the Houses may seem more crowdedlargely because students expect them to be lesscrowded.

Lewis, who lived in Quincy House as anundergraduate, says it is a recent incarnationthat Houses have all but assured upper-classstudents that they will have uncrowded livingarrangements--a single bedroom for every senior, acommon room large enough for all roommates tocomfortably share, at least one private bathroomper suite.

Individual House policies that reinforce thesenotions, he says, only serve to aggravateovercrowding as students entering the Houses areoften assigned especially tight quarters to makeup for the spacious senior accommodations.

"It never used to be an assumption that everysenior was to have a private bedroom," Lewis says."Some of those internal policies may affect thefeeling of crowding."

Few masters or students dispute the notion thatHarvard Houses--even when crowded--provide a levelof student housing that is superior to that atmost other universities.

"We like the students to live well," Wareacknowledges.

"If there's any other college in the U.S. thatprovides housing like Harvard students get--as arule--I'd like to see it," he adds. "The higheryour expectations, the harder it will be to meetthem."

Masters say the widely varying architectureamong the Houses makes it difficult to gauge thetrue degree that the Houses can be consideredovercrowded. With structures that date back to1901 and many that are significantly more modern,the House system has traditionally grappled withplans to address any type of housing problem on anacross-the-board basis.

Largely composed of single rooms, Currier, forexample, has more difficulty accommodating evenperiodic increases in its number of residentswithout severely affecting student comfort than aHouse primarily composed of suites might.

"It makes a great deal of difference to havepeople doubled up in single rooms in a HarvardHouse, Graham says. "When you have some peoplecrowded and some people not, I think that's wherethe problem is."

Pforzheimer House Master James J. McCarthyagrees.

"The students who are unhappiest every yearwith their housing are those who are in housingthat is substandard to the rest of the House,"McCarthy says.