Panel Stresses Importance of House Life

On the heels of last month's unprecedented outpouring of House spirit in the Adams/Pforzheimer war came a panel discussion last night in which students and faculty discussed how to solidify House spirit.

The discussion was meant to move away from randomization and instead examine what has happened to House life, and in particular, House spirit, in recent years.

"The time for debate about randomization is over," said Adams House Committee Co-Chair David L. Levy '00.

Levy, Cabot House Co-Master James H. Ware, Associate Dean of the College Thomas A. Dingman '67 and Undergraduate Council President Noah Z. Seton '00 participated in the panel.

Levy stressed that a productive discussion must be about spirit--which he defined as a manifestation of House community.

Levy proposed four factors needed to build spirit: an easily accessible common space, House special events that could address a wide variety of interests, a recognition and accommodation of ethnic and special-interest groups and dynamic leaders.

Leaders must "rally the rest of the people together," Levy said.

Ware also emphasized the importance of House community.

"Many do not appreciate what a resource [the House system] is," Ware said.

He emphasized that the Houses create a sense of scale and community for the undergraduates.

However, he said that faculty members could take a more active part in undergraduates' lives.

"I am disappointed by the poor connection between faculty and House life," he said. In Cabot, the Senior Common Room table and an informal faculty dinner program are a small step toward addressing this, he said.

But for Cabot, at least, Ware concluded that "the transition [to randomization] did not seem have a dramatic effect on the sense of spirit."

Other administrators also stood up for Harvard's House system.

Dingman said that the fact that other colleges are interested in replicating Harvard's bridging of classroom and residential life is a sign of the administration's recent successes.

However, he also said that it continues to be a challenge to incorporate outside faculty into House life.

Addressing post-randomization life, Dingman said that the effort might seem to "smack of social engineering," yet explained that it would be a shame not to take advantage of the admissions office's work in creating a diverse student body.

"We knew exciting things could happen," Dingman said, citing recent poll results that 11 out of 13 students felt an improvement in House life since randomization.

As for future efforts toward improvement, he suggested improving advising and outreach to students, and on the more radical side, adopting a Yale-style residential system in which first-year students are assigned directly to a residential college.

Following the panelists' presentations, discussion included dialogue about improving student involvement, increasing diversity and shrinking blocking groups.

One extensive point of discussion was the apparent conflict between the administration's desire to create diverse, heterogeneous Houses, and the students' desires to create large blocking groups of friends with common backgrounds.

Janel A. Moore '00 said she took issue with the administration's efforts to separate members of such homogeneous groups in the name of diversification.

While Moore agreed with the overall goal of making a diverse House community, she said, "It's not fair that we bear the brunt of this idea of a grand community."

The Harvard Political Union, a subcommittee of the Institute of Politics, organized the four-person panel that included