Manpower Lack Slows Student Porter System

The student porter plan has apparently reached its limit of expansion and may have difficulty getting through exam period due to a lack of manpower, the CRIMSON learned last night. On the other hand the plan itself is working out satisfactorily and will probably be continued next year at about its present size.

Talks with administrative officers in charge of the plan, porter captains, and porter themselves reveal that there is almost no surplus at all of potential porters. At present there are somewhere between 60 and 70 men working as porters in Dunster House, Thayer Hall, and William James Hall. Common practice now when a porter can not show up in the morning is to have other porters double up and do his work for him.

As originally planned, the failure of a porter to appear would have necessitated only a telephone call to the Student Employment Office to have a substitute porter take his place. However, the substitute list is so thin at present, that the doubling-up is almost always resorted to by porter captains.

Administrative officers like John U. Monro '34, Arthur D. Trottenberg '48, and Gladys Fales of the Employment Office are frankly worried about what will happen when final exams keep porters from showing up. A great effort is being made at present to line up more substitute porters, to provide for that period.

As a method of cleaning, however, the porter plan seems to be quite successful. Dunster House residents, who have been polled by both the porter captains and the CRIMSON, seem quite satisfied with the student cleaning system.