Crimson Reprints Portions of Dean Hanford's Report for 1933-34 About Work of Central Committee and Masters

So that the new men may have a better understanding of the relation of the Central Committee to the whole process of House assignments, the CRIMSON today reprints pertinent extracts from the annual report of Dean Hanford for the year 1933-34.

"The procedure which the Central Committee followed last year was, briefly, as follows. Before any assignments were made, the Master of each House was given the application blanks of all the men who set forth special claims for his House. The Masters considered these applications carefully and indicated to the Central Committee the men whom they would like especially to have assigned to them.

"In the case of the Houses which had a sufficiently large number of applicants with special claims, practically all of the available vacancies were filled from the first choices requested by the Masters.

"Contrary to the popular belief, the lists as drawn up by the Masters were accepted practically intact, and the task of the Central Committee was confined largely to distributing the men who could not be cared for in the Houses for which they had expressed a special claim and those who had expressed no claim at all.

Aside from the element of the maximum price which the student could pay for his accommodations, the Central Committee in apportioning the applicants among the Houses gave chief consideration to placing the men in Houses where they could be assigned to tutors. Through the cooperation of the Masters and of Head Tutors in each field of concentration, the Committee had been provided with the number of new students who could be given tutors in each House.

"The Committee also gave preference to men whose scholastic standing was good, and endeavored to place as many men as possible in the House of their own choice. In addition to data regarding the tutorial quotas of each House, the Central Committee had before it as guides in making the assignments, tables showing the make-up of the Houses and also an analysis of the Freshman applications as to schools, Rank List groupings, and possible fields of concentration.

"The list of tentative assignments as drawn up by the Masters and supplemented by the Central Committee was then turned over to the respective Masters for final review because it was understood at all times that the function of the Central Committee was merely to make an equitable distribution of the applicants; whether or not a man so assigned would be accepted rested entirely with the Master. Except for a few minor adjustments, however, the assignments suggested by the Central Committee were accepted.

"Especial emphasis was placed up on the Houses as educational units in an endeavor to assign as many men as possible to those places where they could work with tutors living in their respective Houses. . . . As a result of giving more attention to fields of concentration and tutorial quotas both on the part of the Central Committee and the Masters, the distribution was carried out in such a way that over 80 per cent of the men could be tutored in their respective Houses.

"The Central Committee also approached its task as a cooperative enterprise in which the initiative was left as much as possible to the House authorities, the Committee serving chiefly as a clearing center. The fact was emphasized that the task of the Committee is one of distribution; the final admission of a student to a House rests with the Master."

In order to facilitate the work of the Central Committee and the Masters, the numerous individual conferences with House authorities will be supplemented this year by a general conference between the Senior Tutors and the Central Committee a few days after the application blanks have been received and gone over by the Houses.