The Move Off-Campus

The experimental decision to allow 20 seniors to live in their own apartments next term is among the most important steps Radcliffe College has taken during Mrs. Bunting's administration. It is as significant as--and a necessary corollary to--the establishment of the House System and the construction of the Fourth House.

Radcliffe takes justifiable pride in its ability to serve the individual needs of its students. As a small college within a large university it can offer an extensive counselling service. The same flexibility and respect for individual needs should be preserved in housing.

The House System offers an increasing number of activities--dinners and informal meetings with faculty members, seminars, concert and movie series, to name only a few-which should be available to all students. Under any housing system many students would choose to remain in a Radcliffe dormitory during their senior year to continue to enjoy these activities.

But some seniors realize that their own needs would best be met if they were to live in an apartment. Their problem is particularly pressing because Radcliffe has been tearing down its off-campus houses, which offer some of the advantages of true off-campus living. If such seniors are forced to remain in the House System, it will offer them little save inconveniences.

Many of the students are involved in Harvard-Radcliffe extra-curricular activities or in intensive work within their field. Occupied in this way, they do not have the time either to contribute to or to profit from House activities. These students tend to keep very different hours from the people around them. Members of dramatic groups or publications may wish to work on those activities for half the night, type a paper, and sleep a good part of the day. Even if a student has a single room, it is almost impossible for her to follow such a routine in a dormitory without disturbing the people around her.

Living in an apartment also offers many positive advantages. Students whose activities and studies force them to spend much of their time in the Square frequently find it inconvenient or impossible to return to Radcliffe for meals. Were they living off-campus, and hence not paying Radcliffe board fees, they would be spared the expense of meals they cannot eat.

To prevent its students from associating entirely with other students and losing sight of other age groups and other ways of life, Radcliffe has selected a number of young couples, many of whom have children as senior residents. Having her own apartment would give a senior an even better chance to live among people of different ages and backgrounds-rather than spending twenty-four hours a day in the academic community.

The Residence Office has frequently encountered students who dislike any type of "dormitory atmosphere" and complain about problems of dorm life such as noise and lack of privacy. The complaints which some students express are irrational and temporary--but by senior year many students are sure that they cannot feel comfortable in a dormitory. In setting up next term's experiment, Radcliffe has recognized the existence of such personal preferences.

The only flaw in the college's otherwise excellent decision is the provision that seniors who apply to live off-campus must be twenty-one. Surely the college does not believe that only a few months' difference in age makes a young woman responsible to live in her own apartment. If students were required to obtain parental permission to live off-campus, its in loco parentis responsibility would not prevent the college from allowing seniors under twenty-one to have their own apartments.

Despite this flaw, the experiment is a worthy one and should be studied carefully. But the results, whatever they may be, should not be judged as conclusive. First of all, 20 students is obviously a small sampling. Also, moving off-campus in February of one's senior year is considerably more troublesome than moving at the beginning of the school year. It is difficult to lease an apartment for a few months; it is inconvenient to hunt for an apartment while preparing for exams and writing a thesis. If for such reasons a comparatively small group of seniors applies, this should not be interpreted as a lack of interest in the experiment.