Masters Unable to Fix Parietal Rule Changes

A confused and divided group of Housemasters met Wednesday night in an attempt to draw up a final set of the new, revised parietal rules. But whatever the new rules are, they will not go into effect until the beginning of the spring term, January 28.

The two aspects of the new rules that are not yet definite and which the House-masters are still debating are Saturday afternoon hours and the number of Saturdays that the new 11 p.m. deadline will apply to.

When the new rules were first announced last month the Saturday room permission hours were set at 4 to 11 p.m. Some of the Masters, however, would like the afternoon hour knocked back to the old limit of 1 p.m. Thus, men who have women guests to lunch could invite them to their rooms immediately afterwards.

The Masters have also been considering a limit on the number of "11 p.m. Saturdays." At one meeting of the Masters, a proposal was made to retain the old 8 p.m. deadline on football weekends.

Confusion has arisen among the Masters because of the "discretionary" powers which they hold in the administering of the parietal rules. No one is quite sure how much leeway the Masters actually have. As Elliott Perkins, Master of Lowell and Secretary of the House-masters Council, said last night, "We just can't go off and say that all Saturdays are exceptions."