Co-ops: Practice in Living

outings are relatively frequent, and boys can be entertained until midnight on open-house nights and 11 p.m. on Sundays.

In addition, the home atmosphere of the house facilitates close contact with the Faculty members invited to special dinners. Seated around tables of six or in front living room fireplaces, section men can tell their favorite stories that could never pass muster in the parlors of Cabot or Holmes.

These advantages of intimate living--and the fact that most girls return to the coops for a second or third year--help produce a remarkable degree of house loyalty. And with more girls applying for residence than can be admitted, the College has seriously considered opening more cooperative units.

This popularity was not foreseen in 1934, when Everett House--at 53 Garden Street--was first opened to under-graduates. At first, the girls simply got their own dinner, but with the advent of dieticians, Planned Menus, and Balanced Diets, the college thought that breakfast should be provided as well. By the time Edmands was opened in 1937, also on Garden Street, a full-scale organizational program had been instituted.

In later years, menus were submitted to the college dietician for approval, but this practice proved impractical and was soon dropped without any noticeable increase in malnutrician, despite ample opportunity. In fact, the graduate residents who formerly had eaten prepared meals in the Quad dormitories have themselves started eating in their own houses.

Beneficial Deficit

While the college actually runs a defecit in the cooperatives, the system is considered worthwhile as an economical means of providing scholarship aid while directly benefiting the cooperative's residents. Additional co-ops, at Radcliffe as well as perhaps at Harvard, may yet become the solution for part of the college's dormitory expansion program. But Mildred P. Sherman, Dean of College Relations, would like to see more brick dormitories--like the planned Ada Louise Comstock Hall--so that girls will not have to live on Massachusetts Avenue or in private homes.

In the future, the Dean hopes Radcliffe may eventually build a large brick cooperative to combine the educational advantages of co-op life with the amenities of new housing. The building would be separated into units for 25 students, but would have a central heating and electrical plant as well as a general storage area. This kind of construction should prove more economical than dormitories, because it removes the need for service personnel, and is easier for the girls to operate because many of the facilities in the old frame houses are today somewhat antequated.

And besides, Dean Sherman jokingly continued, the days of the present off-campus frame houses are numbered, for the present ones may "soon collapse from age anyway."