College to Poll Dudley Students

In response to overcrowding and an inability to offer transfer students rooms in the residential house system, College officials will survey all off-campus undergraduates about what type of housing and house afffiliation they would prefer.

The survey, which will be mailed out to all 311 Dudley House students before Christmas, includes a wide variety of questions ranging from how new transfer students should be treated to what effect the expensive Cambridge real estate market has on off-campus students, said Assistant Dean of the College Georgene B. Herschbach, who is in charge of the survey.

Currently, new transfer students are not guaranteed on-campus housing, although many of them live in "annexed housing"--such as the Peabody Terrace apartments and Apley Court, a Harvard-owned building on Holyoke St.--which the College reserves for undergraduates through Harvard Real Estate (HRE), and they are affiliated with Dudley House.

In recent months College officials have begun to search for a permanent solution to the problems of both overcrowding and transfer student housing, and they said they expect to use the results of the survey to help them find the most popular solution.

"We are considering both what kind of space and what house affiliation [students want,]" said Thomas A. Dingman '67 assistant dean of the College for the house system. "To do one without the other would be counterproductive."

The College may use the survey to determine the amount and type of annexed housing that HRE should reserve for undergraduates, said Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57.

Ultimately, the College may offer upperclassmen seeking an apartment setting the option of living in annexed housing while retaining their house affiliation to upperclassmen, Herschbach said.

After consulting with Dudley House administrators and students, Herschbach decided to make one section of the survey focus on whether students like being affiliated with Dudley House, and if so, what purposes they want the house to serve, she said.

In past years, Dudley House primarily served commuter students and upperclassmen who had chosen to live off-campus. However, College officials said that since the 131 transfer students did not chose to be affiliated with Dudley House, they might prefer a different system.

The survey is designed to determine "whether people in annexed housing would be better served by Dudley or by a residential house which has an intact social life," Herschbach said.

College officials said they are also trying to determine whether adding a dining hall that primarily served undergraduates would increase Dudley's appeal. The Dudley dining hall in Lehman Hall currently serves faculty and staff and students.