House Variety Is Architectural

In looking at the question of ramdomizing the Houses, I think the College and students are overlooking an important obstacle in achieving any sort of meaningful diversity in the Houses: architecture. The old river houses were all designed in a different era to suit a different population of Harvard students. Unlike more typically collegiate dorm-type houses, such as Currier and Mather, they do not lend themselves to students' mingling. The entryway system makes for atomization and isolation between different groups of students. Just from talking to people I know from my house (Eliot) and other houses, many people don't even know people in their own entryway. While hallways do not force people to know each, it does raise the chances of meeting people when rooms are separated on a horizontal, rather than vertical, plane.

Furthermore, the newer houses are also equipped with the facilities one would expect from a college dorm, creating hang-out spots where different people can mix. Such spots are rare in most river houses.

In other words, randomization will probably meet the goal of diversity in houses such as Cabot and New Leverett; it will fail miserably in houses such as Eliot. The old river houses will probably find their populations even more isolated from other blocking groups and defeating the original intention of diversification. Although I would welcome more diversity in my house, looking at how its dynamics function now, I am very skeptical about whether randomization will overcome the obstacle of architecture. Gene Koo '97