Prefrontal Loebotomy

The half-built Loeb Drama Center is already a problem. When the Loeb opens next year, the Faculty will acquire responsibility not only for a structure of brick, concrete, and glass, but also for a community of persons and organizations.

Greasepaint still behind their ears, many of the members of that community loudly deny that the Faculty should control the organization of drama at Harvard, and claim that students should be left to run their own affairs. Such an attitude ignores the realities of the present situation.

A laissez-faire policy by the Faculty would just as surely control the shape of Harvard drama as would one of complete direction, down to the smallest detail. It would ensure the continuance of the present, with its virtues and its evils. Clearly, the Faculty Committee on Dramatics does not intend to allow this. Commendably, it seeks to guide undergraduate dramatics so that it better serves the community and the participants.

The final responsibility for the achievement of this goal is the Faculty's, and it should be achieved through a predominantly Faculty body. Choice of productions for the main stage of Loeb will be the principal way in which the Faculty committee guides the future. Students will initiate production; students will carry them out; but it is the Faculty's job to choose among them. Student opinion should be consulted, perhaps through some advisory group, but final decision must rest with the responsibility, in the hands of the Faculty.