Round Two

Now that the last six men will sleep their last two nights within the Indoor Athletic Building's grim confines, University-wide reaction might well become a final sigh of relief. But the end of one dramatically unsavory incident in the student housing crisis of 1947 does not amount to any sort of end to the crisis itself. While the administrative handling of the unexpected influx this Fall has been smooth for the most part, and conspicuously creditable in intercollegiate comparison, room exists to point out specific shortcomings. Furthermore, in the face of the problem's continuing complexity some high imagination for coping with its future appears immediately necessary.

Well over two hundred commuters would like to move into College quarters. Roughly 604 upperclassmen in Yard dormitories and outside dormitories such as Claverly desire space in the Houses. It is around these pivotal facts that thinking on thins to come must revolve. For even at this early date the anticipated demand for February will greatly exceed the supply of rooms available. Although 460 men will graduate or otherwise leave at midyear this will spell only 275-odd housing openings because of the decision of the House Masters to drop back as soon as possible to the "fifty percent above normal" quotas of last Spring. This ruling means that the absorption of the sixteen or twenty men now added to the House rosters will not be considered to provide "vacancies."

Here lies a fundamental question hinging upon the University's desire to keep the Houses un-crowded. Should the Houses hold their current top peak until the general emergency has subsided! The Masters have already determined the reverse in the belief that the "line must be drawn somewhere." Under this policy the College will continue its practice of letting commuters in slowly but surely on the basis of how long they have commuted and how soon they graduate as well as how far on the outer edges they reside. Fairness has marked the conduct of this policy. Similarly some tutors have voluntarily relinquished their unnecessary space. Nevertheless, the leisurely bureaucratic pace in the transfer of men from the Indoor Athletic Building suggests the need for a greater appreciation of the human factors at stake.

In fin the College is to blame only for the continual feebleness of its attempts to lay groundwork for the housing future. When February rolls around and rooms in and out of the Houses empty, a semblance of standardized priority rating should confront the applicant. The Student Council-AVC housing committee-which by the College's own claim did yeoman work in investigating commuter hardship cases-should be brought into the confidence of those making allocations. Just as the looser critics of the housing powers-that-be could well lend a patient car to the full scope of the issue, so those in authority can not afford to lean complacently back with the gym-dwelling's finale at hand.