A Chilly Christmas Vacation

A few months ago someone from Buildings and Grounds, in a desperate search for new ways to conserve energy, decided to turn a few valves underneath a River House.

What he discovered after turning the valves may be worth more than $50,000 to the Faculty this year.

The valves had been around ever since the older River Houses were constructed, but nobody seemed to know what they did. But when the heat cut off in several sections of the House with one flick, an answer to the long-standing problem of how to close specific entries in Houses over vacation was found.

The valves will enable the Faculty to close down most entries of the River Houses, while keeping open warm spots that will enable hangers-on, a small number of foreign students and tutors, to remain without freezing during the first two weeks of the three-week break.

Although nobody wants to quarrel with energy savings; there were some grumblings last week when Dean Rosovsky announced that a comprehensive energy shut-down that can save $150,000 must include the libraries, museums and athletic facilities.

"Nobody is happy about closing the libraries," Harry Levin, Babbit professor of Comparative Literature, said yesterday about the decision. "If I had my way the library would be open day and night for the whole year."

Levin said that Rosovsky had simply run out of areas to pare down and how to resort to locking out the scholars.

Although the Faculty will test the effectiveness of its heating shutdown over Thanksgiving, the big test will be the winter shutdown itself.

If the shutdown succeeds in slicing the faculty fuel bill--which has jumped $600,000 in the last two years--it may give new impetus to implementing the so-called energy calendar. That calendar begins at the same time as the current academic year, but keeps students idle for about five weeks over Christmas vacation and then shortens spring break.

The prospect of doubling the $150,000 saving may, however, just be too great for the Faculty, traditionally the principle opponent of calendar change.