'Cooperative' Housing Suggested for College

The Overseers' Committee to Visit Harvard College suggested in its recent report, cooperative houses as at least a partial means to help meet College housing needs.

The report considered the House system and possible characteristics of a new House or Houses, and also noted, that "the College should examine the possibilities of all manner of housing arrangements." It then asked, "might it not be useful to experiment, as so many colleges are now doing, with cooperative dormitory arrangements of some sort?"

Decrease in Services

Cooperative dormitories involve a decrease in services provided by the college for students, who take over the work themselves. At Radcliffe, for example, the students in some cooperative houses purchase their own food and do their own cooking. At some institutions, cleaning and jaintorial work are also done by the students in cooperative houses.

The report suggested that a variety of living arrangements might be suitable to accomodate "individual tastes and needs," and said that "much as we admire the Houses and respect what they are doing, we cannot accept the notion that the House Plan provides the only desirable sort of living arrangements for our undergraduates." It noted that "economy and some admirable educational results" were achieved under other systems.