Graduated Dining

As a painless way to vary one's food and one's friends at the same time, interhouse eating has rapidly become a favorite University institution. Free trade in diners is now an accepted practice in all University halls except one--Harkness Commons. Since the practice of signing in undergraduates on board at other houses is taboo at Harkness, a graduate student must pay at least $1.15 every time he brings a House resident as his guest.

It is not that Harkness officials don't like company. On the contrary, they realize that graduate students have many friends in the Houses, and College men contemplating graduate work welcome the chance to mix with their future colleagues. What deters them is a fear that interhouse will crowd the Commons and tax its serving capacity, and that students not signed on board anywhere will sneak into the hall under somebody else's name.

But there are simple and inexpensive checks to eliminate both fears. If Harkness limited the number of its interhouse guests, as does Adams, it could avoid crowds easily. And freeloaders would be eliminated if every undergraduate wishing to eat at Harkness had to show an identification slip from his own dining hall supervisor. This is what Freshmen do when they eat in the Houses.

With this modicum of inconvenience, Harkness interhouse could soon begin. Besides offering a change in menu, it would narrow the social gap between the undergraduate and the graduate student.