Student Council Supports Expansion, Rejects Committee Advice on Growth

The Student Council supported conditional expansion of the College early this morning, repudiating a recommendation of its Committee on Growth and Development of the College.

Near the end of a meeting which lasted over four hours, the report's unqualified opposition to expansion was rejected by the Council, eight votes to six. One member abstained and there were six absences, as several Council members left the meeting early.

Merom Brachman '58, Council vicepresident, and Edward Robin '57, a member of the committee, led the fight against the recommendation, urging that it is the College's responsibility to accept more students, provided that physical facilities are improved to meet present overcrowding.

Jerry D. Goldberg '57, the committee chairman, and Theodore D. Moskowitz '58 spearheaded defense of the recommendation, arguing that it was Harvard's obligation to maintain the highest posible standard of education, and that the College should never expand above its present enrollment level.

The discussion on this one point continued for over an hour and a half, as almost all of the arguments ever cited on either side of the expansion question were aired.

Report Goes to Administration

Earlier in the meeting the Council had unanimously accepted the report, with its recommendations, as a "valid and intelligent study of a vital under graduate issue." This is a formality which means that the Council will transmit the report, as submitted, to the Administration. The Council can then approve or disapprove specific recommendations.

The 47-page report, almost a year in preparation, was not consistently an-tagonistic to expansion, or, as the report termed it, "growth." The recommendations contained a series of proposals for action the Administration could take to facilitate expansion, if it decided to take the step.

Strongest among the recommendations were several that supported the House system, and enunciated particular concepts about size and facilities. Amoung these was the belief that a House should never have more than 400 members, and that there should never be more students than rooms in a suite.

The Council accepted most of the other proposals in the report, and accepted a last-minute committee addition that, "In order to insure an equal standard of efficiency and comfort for all upperclassmen we recommend that the eighth House be an 'overflow House' to accommodate those upperclassmen in Wiggles-worth and Claverly."