Student Housekeeping Staff At MIT Wins Harvard Praise

A unique method by which male students may earn part of their college expenses through housekeeping turned up recently at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it has repeatedly received high praises and approval from administrative officials at Harvard.

There is no indication, however, that the College is planning any immediate steps to follow Tech's lead.

Because M.I.T. was unable to meet this year's increased requests for scholarships and other forms of financial aid, its administration decided upon a program by which a 26-man staff at the new Riverside Dormitory on Memorial Drive could receive free lodging for its work as a student housekeeping staff.

Informed of the Tech plan, Dean Bender said, "This is the way we will have to go if we are to meet the needs of all these who wish to obtain a college education."

Started This Fall

The Riverside student staff actually went on duty September 10, with the new building not yet completed. It was known at that time that the dormitory would not be ready for occupancy before the opening of classes. In order to help the residents, the staff worked to prepare the adjacent apartment building, still occupied by many non-student families, for temporary living quarters, while the contractors were completing the large, gray structure at 410 Memorial Drive.

The 26 housekeeping staff members were chosen through personal interviews by the office of the Advisor to the student activities staff. Their housemaid duties, which includes caring for rooms on Saturdays as well as weekdays, are relatively simple, and each man works a total of about 12 hours a week.

Captain Fickenwirth

Five staff men are assigned to each of the five floors in Riverside. The twenty-sixth man, Frederic Fickenwirth, acts as a coordinator, or Captain. One of the five men on each floor is in charge of student property and of maintenance of stairways. A second, the "plumbing expert," is responsible for the upkeep of lavatories and showers. He also cleans the corridors.

The remaining three men are assigned to the cleaning of rooms and the supplying of towels and linens for the 48 students on each floor.

To keep up high housekeeping standards a set of reports must be submitted to Fickenwirth each day by the floor leaders. One requirement is a check of the working condition of more than 50 different items on each floor. A second report--this one graded--is drawn up after a general inspection of various parts of the dormitory.

Tried Elsewhere

A similar enterprise attracted much attention some time ago when Sarah Lawrence College girls helped dormitory funds by doing their own housework. A somewhat similar arrangement, was recently adopted at the 'Cliffe.

Complete payment of rent for student employees is also practised at Boston University.