Fox says that at the outset the majority of the community was ambivalent about the plan but opposed unilateral change by University Hall.
Many students told The Crimson that they supported the plan in principle, but wanted it to be implemented in the future so that they would not run the risk of being sent to the Quad.
In March, then-Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky approved the plan. According to Fox, by the time the plan was accepted by the full Faculty, it had been endorsed by all but one House Master, the Freshman Dean’s Office, the relevant student-faculty committee and the Faculty Council.
After a generation of students had come and gone and incoming undergraduates were scarcely aware that the Quad Houses had ever housed first-years, resentment over the Fox Plan naturally waned.
“All that survived,” Fox remembers, “was a sense that the Fox Plan had been a terrible thing. But no one could remember why.”
—Staff writer Dan Rosenheck can be reached at rosenhec@fas.harvard.edu.