Suites For Strangers

When Christopher S. Howe '89 walked into his freshman triple for the first time, his roommate thought he was seeing double. Chris looked exactly like Kenneth M. Hirsh '89, who was about to spend a year with him.

"The other [residents of the dorm] couldn't tell us apart for over a month. We still tell people that we are brothers, and they believe us. People still mistake me [for Ken]," Howe says.

Other former freshmen recall roommate problems of a very different kind. My roommate "tried to burn down the dorm," a former Matthews resident recall. "He was wacko."

Although these situations have occurred in the past, the Freshman Dean's Office (FDO) hopes to avoid repetitions, so they devote a great deal of time to assigning freshmen to rooming groups.

The FDO is already preparing for next year's freshman class, by gathering together the application folders and interview files of the latest crop of would-be Harvard students. Once the members of the Class of 1992 have been selected, the FDO this spring will send them its two-page housing application form.

Using this form, which the future frosh return during the summer months, the six senior advisers will sit down and spend four weeks and close to $200,000 playing Harvard's unique version of the dating game--matching personalities and peculiarities in the search for the perfect rooming group.

The search is often successful, and equally often it is not "They took all of my characteristics, and tailor-made a rooming group to perfectly match them," says Sarah B. Wigglesworth '91, explaining that she and her roommates agree in both tastes and temperaments. But another freshman says her room is "turning into a war. I'm going to cry for the rest of the year."

For better or for worse, the process begins when a computer randomly divides the files of the freshman class into six groups representing approximately 250 students apiece. The computer then arbitrarily assigns each group to the north, south, east or west Yard, to Canaday or to the Union dorms. Each group of folders then goes to a senior advisor who spends several days carefully spreading them out in his or her office, on top of the desk and all over the floor.

The first separation each senior adviser makes is to divide the smokers from the non-smokers, says Robin M. Worth '81, the south Yard senior advisor who coordinated the rooming effort this past summer. The advisors then separate the messy from the meticulous, and the socialites from the studious. From within these sub-groups, each advisor tries to create rooming units that are diverse and yet share some common bonds, Worth says.

Having created the rooming groups, the senior advisors then divide the freshman rooms into entryways and proctorial units, once again attempting to balance the seemingly opposing goals of unity and diversity within these larger groups, she says.

"It's a challenging process. There's not a recipe [for a successful rooming group]. It's just intuition," says Worth. "We want to capitalize on the diversity of the class. But you must be able to draw some line between all the members of a group. Everyone should have something in common with everyone in the room."

C. Caroline Quillian Stubs '80, senior advisor for the east Yard, says that it is difficult to strike a balance between heterogeneity and homogeneity in a single room. "I'm mostly trying for unity in the rooms. I mean, it would be nice to have a diverse unity, but that's not always possible."

But she adds the large entryways of the east Yard dorms allow her to create diversity within the entries when it is not possible within the rooms. Even so, several entryways have managed to form identies of their own. This year, Mass Hall is known for housing a majority of the freshman football squad, and other dorms have gained interesting reputations in the past.

Last year, the C entry of Canaday was known for trouble, residents say. Former Canadayan Jeffery M. Bray '90 says that "We probably had 10 out of the 30 people in the entry [go before] the Ad Board. I guess you could call that troublemaking."

Bray recalls that one of his freshman roommates was caught stealing a sign during freshman week, and another was accused of following "improper test-taking procedure." In addition, Bray says, the entire room was Ad-Boarded for throwing a party that went out of control. "We were active kids," says Bray.

Activity is just one of the many different factors that each senior adviser weighs in creating the rooming groups in his or her section of the freshman dorms. Karen L. Heath, senior advisor for the Union dorms, says she places a lot of emphasis on keeping night owls and early risers apart, while Stubbs says that she considers musical tastes to be particularly important.

"You are constantly aware of 9000 different factors," Heath says. But she adds, "The system is as successful as it can be. [The senior advisors] have to make a lot of decisions with only limited information. There is no such thing as a perfect system."

Some students actually work to prevent the system from working by providing less than accurate information. Rather than admit their faults, some freshmen write "idealized versions of the truth" on their housing forms, she says.

"I'm very disappointed in people who lie [on their rooming forms]," says Worth, adding that the FDO is most concerned with freshmen who are less than honest in writing about their smoking habits. Harvard guarantees all non-smokers a smoke-free room if they so request. But with only "idealized" information on which to base rooming groups, this is a hard promise to keep, she says.

Michael C. Zweber '91 says he requested a smoke-free room on his housing application form, but one of his four roommates smokes. The FDO "should stress the smoking situation more. Second-hand smoke really bothers me," says Zweber, who says that four or five people in his assigned smoke-free entryway smoke on a regular basis.

The FDO is also hampered because its information often becomes outdated. "People change, too. We try as hard as we can to get a sense of a person, but sometimes you can't predict how this place is going to affect someone," says Worth, adding that these changes can often cause a great deal of stress in a rooming group.

Because the roommate matching system has its flaws, the FDO makes an effort to help freshmen deal with their roommate troubles. "Most problems can be solved by mediation. We avoid a lot of problematic situations that Way," Worth says.

Worth says she advises freshmen who have problems with their roommates to try to work things out within the room. If this does not work, freshmen should arrange for their proctors to mediate the argument, she says. And, as a last resort, the senior advisor can be called in to deal with the situation.

Room changes are an option only if the senior advisor cannot help the roommates work out their differences, Worth said. "There are times where it is just impossible for people to coexist. But we really discourage [rooming changes]. We just don't have enough rooms. People should negotiate with their roommates, and learn to have a little toleration."

Last year, two groups of roommates in the south Yard arranged conferences with Worth about rooming problems, but none of them changed rooms, she says.

Harvard maintains several unoccupied single rooms which can accommodate freshmen unhappy with their roommates. While Worth would not say exactly how many rooms are so reserved, she says there are "very few spots available," and that they are mostly first-floor rooms needed in case of medical emergencies.

Despite his complaints about smoke, Zweber says he will not ask for one of these singles. "I have a hard time finding a common bond in our room. But [the FDO] succeeded if they were trying to be diverse. We're learning to deal with each other's space and how to put up with each other. We're growing. I can't complain."

Zweber is not alone in his search for the elusive common bond. Peter H. Gray '91 also says that his roommates had trouble finding features that they shared. "At first we couldn't find the common bond. Then we realized what it must be. We're all very skinny. We must have the lowest body-fat ratio in the entire building," he says.

Other freshmen say they have also found they share interesting qualities with their roommates. Wigglesworth says she does not think all of her roommates share a single characteristic, but they each have something in common with her. One roommate is "strange" in the way she is, Wigglesworth says, adding that another shares her temperament. Most important of all, she says, is that she and one of her roommates are both convinced that Richard III was the greatest English king of all time.

men say the FDO did a good job with her rooming group, they still have some criticisms of the process. Freshmen suggested several alterations to the housing application, including the elimination of the neatness scale and the addition of space where incoming frosh could request certain physical characteristics for their rooms, such as fire-places or private baths.

While the senior advisors say they are always happy to listen to constructive criticism, they add that they have no immediate plans to change the rooming system. "It's tough for an 18-year-old to know what is best. We take the harder route, not just listening to requests, but trying to stretch the person," Worth says.

And if all goes well, nobody gets bent out of shape.