A New Way To Solve the Quad Crisis

The transfer policy enacted Wednesday by the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life has some hidden virtues that those involved in the housing crunch can best appreciate.

The official reason that the program, which places all of next year's transfers in the Quadrangle, passed the CHUL was that Barbara Rosenkrantz, master of Currier House, promised that if the new recruits were to be shepherded to the Quad, they would received added benefits, including special orientation programs and their own senior advisers.

But inextricably linked with the transfer plan is the notion that the new program will also provide some sorely needed flexibility for rising sophomores frantically searching for a way out of the Quad.

The transfer program may only free 36 River House spaces for those who are assigned to the Quad, but the plan is the administration's last resort to appease some of the freshman dissidents, while at the same time offering a program of positive value to the 30 to 50 anticipated transfers for next year.

There is nothing unusual about putting all the transfers in the Quad. Bruce Collier, assistant dean of the College for housing, said earlier this week that before Harvard admissions imposed a moratorium on transfers last year that held transfer students down to a handful, transfers were alternately placed in the Quad ordispersed throughout the House system.

This year the administration planned to go ahead with putting four transfers in each House. Thus the change in policy by the CHUL freed the 36 River House spaces formerly reserved for the incoming transfers.