The Quincy House Dining Hall, which currently faces overcrowding and long lines at peak hours, may soon implement dining restrictions for freshmen.
The People’s House may soon close its doors on eager throngs of foreign diners.
After a volley of complaints on the House open list about dining hall crowds and overworked staff, Quincy House Master Robert P. Kirshner ’70 called an open meeting Tuesday night to discuss the possibility of enacting the Houses’s first dining hall restrictions.
Though members of the house did not come to a conclusion at the meeting, the final decision on restrictions will be announced within the next two days.
“We seem to be the victims of our own success (great renovations) and virtue (most welcoming),” Kirshner said in an e-mail to Quincy residents two weeks ago.
The House’s convenient location—together with the revamping of the serving area and restrictions on diners at other House dining halls—has lured thousands more visitors to Quincy this year.
The total number of meals served in Quincy increased by 35 percent from last spring, with freshman consuming nearly 10 percent of all dinners served. Numbers also show that the amount of freshman diners has increased by a factor of 4.5 from last year, while the total number of visiting diners have increased nearly 230 percent.
“Whatever we do will aim to relieve the crowding and in a way that is humane,” Kirshner said last night.
Quincy residents at Tuesday’s meeting agreed that their main concern was the presence of large groups of freshman diners that occupy entire tables, crowd the grill, and make no effort to mingle with the upperclassmen.
Recently, residents also expressed their discontent through starting a group on thefacebook.com entitled “Quincy Students for the Relocation of Freshmen back to Annenberg.”
The group of about 20 students suggested a ban on freshmen at dinner on Sundays through Thursdays, in addition to an interhouse guest policy.
“I don’t think we’re making life hard for them,” resident Kristin E. Wheatley ’07 said. “There’s nothing we’re depriving them of and there’s nothing they’re gaining here.”
But freshmen may not take to the change easily.
Pennypacker resident Siena T. Koncsol ’08 said that she became familiar with the House’s Assistant Senior Tutor Judith F. Chapman through eating at Quincy and is now on the House babysitting list.
Koncsol says being able to eat in Quincy, uninhibited by dining restrictions, provides an outlet for socializing outside of the Yard.
“It opens opportunities to freshmen without being at expense of upperclassmen and acts as a way to foster connections,” Koncsol said.Koncsol also started a group for Union Dorm residents on thefacebook.com called “Quincy is for the people (namely, Us),” in response to the group set up by the dissatisfied Quincy residents.
