Bender Questions Need For New Commuter Unit

There will be "no justification" for the proposed $1 million non-resident student center unless the College continues a policy of "forced commuting," Dean Bender asserted yesterday. The center is part of the Program for Harvard College, and preliminary building plans have been prepared.

"All indications are that the decline of voluntary commuters who can get admitted will continue." Bender explained, "and will finally hit a floor at around three per cent of the student body." Non-resident students now comprise nine per cent of the College.

Since the war, Bender observed, "I have talked to few applicants who really want to live at home. Except for valid special cases, most young men want to cut the apron strings and live at the College." Bender said he was against forcing these students to commute.

The number of voluntary commuters who apply for admission is limited by geography, he noted. "Within Greater Boston, there is only a certain group which both meets our requirements and wants, for some reason, to live at home." The competition for admission is getting "stiffer and stiffer," Bender said, and "taking a much larger group of commuters would mean accepting less able and less desirable students than we can get elsewhere."

On the other hand, Bender pointed out that adding more commuters is a "relatively inexpensive" way of enlarging the College. "By building the new non-resident center, and making the lot of the commuters more attractive, we could handle 500 students, for example, at a much lower cost than residence involves."

Basic Objection

Bender explained that he has "a basic objection to something like Dudley House, which is a group of students sequestered on the basis of geography and financial need, unlike the careful cross-section in each residential House." Building a new center, he indicated, would do nothing to solve this problem.

"Taking the long range view," Bender concluded, "a time can be imagined when there will be a 10:1 admissions ratio, and the status of the forced commuter might be higher than at present. But, unless this develops, I find it hard to imagine that a large group of people will want to live at home."