The Master's Role

HARVARD'S HOUSES are currently among the most poorly run sub-divisions of the University. There isn't much money in House budgets, relative to the total amounts the University spends, so the prevailing incompetence doesn't show up glaringly. But the Houses are one of the most important elements in undergraduate experience here, and their distressing condition has significant consequences.

Master's prerogatives are a central problem. The prevailing condition in Harvard Houses is one of not-necessarily-benign absolutism. Masters take their titles very seriously, and often enjoy flaunting their powers. The educational value of Harvard undergraduates' spending three years under the example of a petty but absolute academic bureaucrat is questionable.

But the indirect consequences of Masters' prerogatives are far more serious. As long as the tutorial staff is a source of personal patronage for the Master, as long as Masters tend to appoint tutors in their own fields rather than the fields of most interest to students, as long as tutorships remain a way of feeding and housing poor graduate students who catch the Master's sympathy, the Houses will be considerably less than an ideal. Every year students witness some unjustifiable tutorial appointments, and the only explanation for them is petty corruption.

In too many instances Masters make decisions not because they have any particular responsibility, but because they preempt the right. Limitations on interhouse dining are seldom decided by anyone but a House Master, and petty irritations such as the Eliot House security door are generally the product of some arbitrary decision by a Master.

One particularly serious area in which Masters' choice has traditionally played a major role is that of freshman assignment to the Houses. This year, Masters were not permitted to protect more than 25 per cent of the entering sophomores, but that figure has a distorting effect on the makeup of House populations. Surely something is wrong when less than half of all students get into their first-choice House while Masters continue to pick so many of the House applicants.

The Houses are not merely inequitably run, they are poorly run. President Bok has shown an interest in limiting the tenure of House Masters. This idea carries with it an implicit limitation on Masters' prerogatives. The time has come for a more radical redefinition of the Master's role, for moderating his powers, and for increasing the importance of students, House staff and the central administration in making decisions affecting House life; these changes might improve the quality of House life a little.