Housemasters Urge Quieter Dining Rooms

A proposal that would make House dining halls quieter by moving the serving tables into the kitchen high-lights suggestions that three House-masters have submitted to Dean Bundy for the Physical improvement of the Houses.

Masters Elliott Perkins '23 of Lowell, Leigh Headley of Leverett, and Reuben A. Brower of Adams all agreed that quieting dining halls to permit educational conversation is a prime need of the House system. Only Perkins made concrete proposals toward this end; however, his suggestions still require official approval and fund allocation.

Headley, on the other hand, is definitely going ahead next year with a plan to convert a large suite in Leverett into a room for various student staff meetings and concentration dinners. The move is designed, he said, to free the Junior Common Room for students to relax and do casual reading.

Similarly, Brower sees a need in Adams House for a Senior Common Room, so that the House's many staff members could get to know each other better. Brower has suggested that such a room be built on the first floor of C-Entry, but his plan, like Perkins, still needs official approval and money.

Perkins has proposed that the Lowell dining hall be made quieter by 1) sound-proofing its two end walls, and 2) moving the serving tables into the kitchen. Under the latter arrangement, which is similar to the dining set-ups at Yale, the student would file into the kitchen to get his food and file back into the dining room to eat.

The resulting reduction in noise would, according to Perkins, make possible "the interchange of opinions that should go on in a dining room."

The Lowell Master describes himself as "very bearish" about his plan's immediate chance of execution. He was optimistic enough, however, to have asked the University not to paint the Lowell dining hall during the past vacation, as was planned.