Masters of All-Male Houses Oppose CHUL's Coed Plan

The masters of the four all-male Houses as well as some Harvard freshmen have expressed dissatisfaction over the most recent coed living plan voted by the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL).

The plan eliminates a female residency requirement in the Houses. The number of women in each House next year will be based on House and ratio preferences indicated by students on applications.

Dean Epps' office reports that so far 147 Harvard freshmen have requested to move to Radcliffe. As of Monday, only 16 women had turned in applications to the Radcliffe dean of residence asking to move to Harvard, one source reported yesterday.

The deadline for applications is today.

The four masters fear that both men and women will choose to live in Houses that have the highest female-male ratios, i.e., the Houses that are already coed.

"Anyone who supports the House system as a whole could no more support the CHUL plan than one that would give one House all the athletes," Richard Gill, Master of Leverett House, said.

According to one administrator, some Harvard freshmen have complained that if all the women are assigned to the same Houses in order to get improved ratios, there will be fewer openings in those Houses for incoming men.

In any of the five currently coed Houses, only from 50 to 80 places would be open to incoming men next year if a two-to-one ratio were achieved.

The four masters also feel that a coed living plan with a minimum female residency requirement in each House could be successful despite Harvard's four-to-one male-female ratio.

"The goal of the House system is to maintain fairly uniform structures in the Houses," Gill said. "Public and private school graduates, athletes, and areas of concentration are all distributed more or less evenly. Co-residence should not be treated as an exception."

"Once the decision is made that co-residence is established as a part of life at Harvard-and it has been-," Gill added, "It means that Houses should have the same structure with regard to that dimension as they do to all the others.

Dean May's subcommittee on co-residency will meet this Thursday or Friday to determine from submitted applications the extent of co-residency in each House next year.