Stewart Seeks Alleviation Of Lowell's Overcrowding

Zeph Stewart, Master of Lowell House, spoke out last night against "greater inequalities between old and new Houses at Harvard," criticizing in particular the conditions which have made Lowell the most overcrowded House in the College.

Stewart sent a letter some weeks ago to Dean Ford protesting that 68 per cent of Lowell's rooms have more men in them than was originally planned. In an interview granted in response to the letter, Stewart said that the Administration has "built the new Houses awfully well while doing nothing to relieve old ones."

His letter cited calculations made during a Committee on Houses study which showed the Houses widely scattered in degree of overcrowding from Lowell's 68 to Kirkland's 32 per cent.

"It's harder on everyone in the House--Master, tutors, and students--when there are too many men in the rooms," Stewart said. In the letter, he requested that Dean Ford take action to reduce Lowell's overcrowded rooms by at least 18 per cent to a condition more in line with other Houses.

The Master said that Dean Ford had acknowledged that the letter was persuasive and that it had been passed on to the various Deans--Glimp, Watson, and Arthur D. Trottenberg '48, assistant dean for Resources and Planning--in charge of housing.

In his calculations, Stewart said, he, unlike Trottenberg who has made a similar study, did not consider the dismantling of bunkbeds and using a living room as a bedroom as an act of deconversion. "My figures are rough, but reasonably accurate," he said.