PBH Reduces Programs, Cuts Volunteer Enrollment

Phillips Brooks House has cut its volunteer enrollment to 60 per cent of last year's total.

The cut is not due to lack of student enthusiasm, Wesley E. Profit '69, PBH president said. He added that there were excess applicants this year.

Community Control

The two reasons for the enrollment drop, Profit said, are that the community has assumed control of several PBH projects, and that most of the remaining programs have asked for far fewer volunteers.

PBH has discontinued or trimmed significantly six of its 20 programs since last spring. The cuts eliminated 450 of 1047 volunteer jobs.

The shift in tutorial committee policy has caused the largest drop in the PBH totals. Outside agencies are now doing the work handled by 305 tutors last year.

The reorganization of the Roosevelt Towers program caused a second large cut. Last year 150 volunteers tutored and organized sports activities. This year 30 volunteers run a job placement center and seminars.

The Lyman program, which supplies tutors for a boy's reformatory, uses 12 instead of 20 volunteers.

Efficiency

"It's a question of time and efficiencyp. We don't want trained volunteers bogged down with the supervision of untrained newcomers," Michael A. Bundy '70, head of the Person Achievement Counciling and Education program (PACE), said yesterday.

"We discourage applicants from being too enthusiastic by telling them that the commitment is very large," said Mark W. Segar '70, one of Bundy's staff members. He added, however, that two-thirds of the PACE workers are new this year.

"There is always room for the newcomer, the inexperienced," Profit said. "I'm really disturbed by the fact that we have to turn people away," he added.