New Off-Campus Policy

Dean Watson said in a recent interview that the College wants to encourage students to move off-campus. This is surely a welcome decision, for by the wonderous process of laissez-faire it will permit those students to leave the Houses who have wanted to do so and provide space for those denied entry because of crowding. It might also give the College an opportunity to deconvert over-full quarters.

It only remains for the Administration to publicize this new policy and to remove those beauracratic tangles which make moving off-campus unduly complicated and, at times, expensive.

Now the College sets a quota in May of the number of men from each House to be allowed off, and over the summer increases the total by dribs and drabs. Instead, Watson should announce sometime in the spring that any prospective junior or senior who wants to leave the Houses will be given permission.

If, as Watson asserts, only a "handful" of men now in the Houses don't want to be there, the new measure will cause no additional administration headaches. If, however, many students are eager to move but have been discouraged from applying because of uncertainty about their prospects or the attitude of the College, there will then be room in the Houses for those men previously forced to live off-campus.

Either way this open policy will elimnitae that small, unlucky group which doesn't receive permission to leave campus until September, when rooms are scarce and rents high.