And Michael D. Shumsky '00, who transferred to Harvard after his first year at Wesleyan, says his time at Wesleyan taught him that free choice does not necessarily lead to diversity.

"I hoped to immerse myself in a social and educational atmosphere with a whole range of backgrounds and perspectives that I had never been exposed to," says Shumsky, who served on the Committee on House Life when it voted to decrease blocking group size.

Shumsky says Wesleyan's system of choice led to housing arrangements balkanized along cultural or interest group lines.

Formative Virtue

Lewis says that the benefits of the smaller blocking group size might not be immediately apparent to the students who are caught up in the frantic process of deciding who will be included in their group.

Nearly two weeks ago, Lewis rejected a petition signed by over half of the first-year class calling for him to expand the group maximum back to 16.

"This whole system is designed for a larger educational good over a longer period of time," he says.

The smaller size, he says, is meant in part to prevent students from living with large numbers of like-minded people who would insulate them from the House community as a whole.