Monro Drafts New Plan for House Choice

Dean Monro will soon begin drafting a new plan for assigning freshmen to Harvard's eight residential Houses.

The plan will go into effect this spring and will replace last year's selection system, which was criticized sharply by both Masters and students.

Monro hopes to have a finished plan approved by the House Assignment Committee before Christmas. "My impression is that there isn't a great deal of disagreement," he said.

The plan, worked out in broad outline last spring, would be the third different procedure in three years. It represents, Monro believes, a compromise between last years plan and the one that was used for many years before that.

Old Procedure

Until last year, the Masters and the freshmen sat squarely in the center of the selection process. All freshmen made three choices on their applications, and the Masters were responsible for the bulk of selections themselves.

This procedure had its critics, however. Under it, certain Houses were regularly overapplied and others regularly under-applied by freshmen; the assignment process, it was charged, became too competitive and damaged the images of the underapplied Houses. Moreover, the critics said, the process was far too time-consuming.

To end an "unhealthy numbers game," the Administration substituted a scheme that curtailed both the freshman's and the Master's assignments and thus assumed the central role. But this procedure only evoked the harsh criticism of some Masters and students who wanted a large choice for themselves.

Attempted Compromise

Under the plan that Monro will propose, freshmen would now be allowed to make choices on their applications (they could write letters last year, but these were only considered if the committee deemed the reasons for preferring one House over another "substantial"). Those Masters who want to will be allowed to submit lists of individual student choices, but, as before, the House Assignment Committee will remain in charge of the distribution process.

The composition of the committee, however, has been altered. Two new Masters--Richard T. Gill '48 of Leverett House, and Zeph Stewart of Lowell House -- will join Bruce Chalmers, Master of Winthrop, on the 10-man committee

Monro said the details of the plan haven't been worked out yet, but he expressed opposition to any revival of the traditional system which allowed Masters to make most selections. Under this procedure, Masters picked a large percentage of their incoming sophomores from those students who had designated the House as one of their three choices.

Some Masters, Monro said, don't want to take part in this long process and their interests must be protected. "The committee has got to be able to assure those Masters who don't want to participate that they receive a fair share of the strength of the class."

The committee will probably also follow a procedure used last year to determine "the strength of the class," Monro said. By going through freshmen folders, and talking to senior advisers and advisers of extracurricular activities, the committee was able to isolate the "one to two hundred people who stood out and seemed to be contributing a lot to the community already," Monro said. With their roommates, these students were distributed first among the different Houses; this segment constituted about 30 to 40 per cent of the class.

It is possible that new conflict will develop over the strength of student and Master choice within this system; last Spring, for example, there was some pressure for both the total abolition of the House Assignment Committee and for a limited return to autonomous Masters selections.

In the past, however, the Masters have been divided over the House selection process and have rarely presented a united front to the Administration