Monro Probes Dangers In Yard House System

There are "dangers and problems" inherent in the plan to group the freshman dormitories into five units, Dean Monro warned yesterday. In a discussion held in the lower common room of the Union, Monro stated that "now is the time for people who are worried about the system to speak up."

Probably the greatest danger in the proposal is that it may too greatly reduce the "shock" of the present freshman year, according to Monro.

He felt the initial freshman confusion was "necessary in communicating something of the size and variety of a great university." The chaos a freshman normally finds at Harvard is a "much better model" of what he is likely to find later in life than the relatively ordered life of a student in a House.

This confusion often tends to lessen the intellectual value of the freshman year, Monro claimed. The five Yard "Houses" would be an attempt to offset this danger by "extending the range of connection between students and faculty."

To create this extension, Monro hopes to have freshman advisers also conduct informal, luncheon seminars, and he said he is looking for still other methods to increase student-faculty contact "in ways that are painless and pleasant to both." One possibility which has been suggested, he said, is that sections for Gen Ed courses be held within the five units wherever possible by resident fellows.

However, section men will not be used as advisers, Monro said. "Between the student and the section man there is a kind of contest or war--the competition for the grade. This kind of student-teacher relationship is not good for an advising atmosphere."

Will Not Take Pulses

One of the prime aims of the new system is to strengthen the present freshman advisory system, noted Dean von Stade, who was also present at the discussion. "It will provide machinery for gently and easily helping students with difficulties." He added, however that the new plan was "not an attempt to go around and take pulses and temperatures of freshmen. They will still have to seek advice on their own initiative."

Under the new system both section men and advisers would be more readily available, since they would be eating and living with the freshmen. The increased number of head proctors--from the present three to five--would be a further advantage. "What you are in effect doing is doubling the number of assistant deans, and making them live with the troops," Monro commented.

Another problem that might be presented by the new system is the decreased importance of the entry as a basic unit of the freshman class. Monro, however, stated that fears of a loss of espirit de corps in the entries were ungrounded since such a feeling rarely exists. "All the entries have holding them together at the present time are the intra-mural teams and the waterfights," he observed.