Dunster Masters Request Student Input in Tutor Hiring

Implementing Dunster House's revised tutor selection process, House Masters Karel F. and Hetty Liem sent a letter to Dunster students earlier this month requesting input on the tutor selection process.

"We want students to get very much involved in the process," Karel Liem said yesterday.

The letter asks students to submit written comments to aid the masters in the process of reviewing current tutors for reappointment. It also requests that students "try to recruit really good candidates."

The tutor selection process was revised over the summer due to charges of conflict of interest in the hiring process. Last year, eight tutors said that Vincent W. Li '87, the assistant senior tutor in charges of hiring, had influenced Karel Liem in the hiring of Li's brother, girlfriend and two longtime friends.

The letter is "nothing new," Liem said, merely the implementation of guidelines set up over the summer and printed in the Dunster facebook.

House Committee Co-chair Victor Chiu '94-'95 said he does not believe student responses have been "flooding in." But Chiu added, "It's a good, sincere effort by the Masters to try to get input from students."

Despite the attention generated by the tutor hiring controversy last May, Ted G. Rose '94-'95, organizer of Dunster Students for Free Expression said "the issue has died a lot."

Rose, who is a Crimson editor, said he gives "Liem credit for dealing with the issue."

Dunster Students for Free Expression met with Liem in October to discuss the tutor hiring policy.

"This is what students were expecting," Rose said.