PBH: Finding More To Life Than Machiavelli

In March of 1972, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the nationwide radical campus group, needed a place to hold a convention. It appeared that no Ivy League school would accomodate them, until the Phillips Brooks House Association agreed to allow the organization to reserve rooms.

Andrew L. Creighton '81, recounts the legend surrounding the commotion. The University police, in an attempt to deny the SDS access to Harvard, locked all the gates to the Yard. However, a custodian of Phillips Brooks House had ferreted away a key to the gate some years before. Using the key, 150 SDS members snuck into the building, and the convention proceeded without further incident.

"We just did what we usually do--try to accomodate everyone," Lee H. Smith, the administrative assistant at PBH for the past 20 years, says in a rare moment of free time. "Me, I left and went home," she adds.

The SDS story illustrates the tendency of the PBH Association (PBHA), the building's principle tenant, to support progressive social and political outfits. The difference between the House itself and the Association has led to a good deal of confusion. PBHA, Harvard's largest undergraduate organization, is a social action group accommodating a wide variety of volunteer placements.

Phillips Brooks House, according to its charter, is available for rental to any outside group at minimum cost. Organizations from Scottish folk dancing to recruiting law firms have rented rooms there.

"There are a lot of divergent political views among the volunteers. Most are people with high ideals," Linda L. Ujifusa '80, a former member of PBHA steering committee, explains over cookies and tea one late afternoon at the house.

Experience in the community often has a radicalizing effect on these roseate idealists.

"I was unaware of the nature of housing problems around here until I went out to Chelsea and saw sinks falling out of the walls," says Creighton, a member of PBH's Committee for Economic Change.

Three years ago, there was a philosophical split between committees working for social reform, such as the economic change group, and those performing social services, such as tutoring in high schools.

Creighton says service committees have always attracted more volunteers because "they offer tangible results as opposed to working for nebulous causes and struggling organizations."

A conflict within the Mental Health Committee two years ago reflects the difference between the social reform and social service sectors. Volunteers worked in mental hospitals doing typical social service work until committee chairmen chose to eliminate these placements and to concetrate instead on alternative mental health concerns, such as halfway houses and a journal of radical therapy.

There are still definite differences between the two general types of committees. "Groups working for social reform are trying to analyze and remedy the causes of the problem, while social service attempts to relieve its effects," says Kristen L. Manos '80, president of PBH.

"But now, a sort of compromise has been reached--we co-exist and co-operate," she adds.

The full acceptance of the house guideline, "helping people gain control over their own lives," illustrates the present attitude of co-operation and the de-emphasis of ideology. A former steering committee member, who asked to remain anonymous, remembers heated debate over the guideline's adoption. "It's no longer an issue, though, because we realize that the guideline allows for flexibility," she says. Steering committee members claim Phillips Brooks House is constantly reevaluating its programs.

For instance, a task force designed to investigate the relationships between Harvard and the Cambridge community which Creighton is involved with has not worked out very well. "We've had trouble finding people who want to do the work. It's tough research," Creighton says. "We're doing some soul-searching--we don't know if this is where we should be spending our time, even though students aren't as aware of the issues as they should be," he adds.

This semster, three new committees are being added to the existing eleven.

Last year's steering committee saw a need to co-ordinate placements dealing with the problems unique to women, and to investigate new volunteer possibilities to aid women in the community.

"There were issues particular to women that were just not getting dealt with. For instance, the whole problem of women prisoners," Manos says.

The recently formed Environmental Action Committee is another example of a group designed to deal with a previously unmet need. The third new committee, Community Health, is a revamping of the Community Medical Program, which placed volunteers as orderlies in hospitals. The new program, instead, will work primarily in community health clinics, preventitive medicine, and alternative health care options.

Whether these social reform committees will succeed as well as the ever-popular "Big Brother" and "Big Sister" social services is a matter for speculation.

Despite the large number of volunteers at PBH, the turnover rate is estimated to be as high as 50 per cent. Manos attributes the drop-out figures to volunteers' other academic and extracurricular activities. "I haven't known many people who dropped out for other reasons," she says.

"I was doing one-to-one big sister work...I'm not doing it now because the time commitment was just too great...I have two part-time jobs, and I do House Committee and intramural sports, and if I didn't see my little sister at least once a week I felt I would be cheating her..." notes Linda Frescas '80.

Most volunteers who do stay in PBH often feel frustrated. "You're overwhelmed by your own helplessness," Creighton says. But the volunteer is frequently so angered by unjust conditions that he stays anyway. "It's great to have personal outrage, because that's what keeps you going," he adds.

Ujifusa says she thinks most people at PBH view their work "unassumingly." "I can't go into Roxbury saying I'm the savior," she comments. "Any arrogance you have doesn't last long," she adds.

When Creighton goes to his volunteer work, he does not say he is from Harvard. "It's not that I'm ashamed--it's just that the fact I'm from Harvard is not relevant," he explains.

"It doesn't matter out there if you've read Machiavelli," Ujifusa adds.

The University stopped giving PBHA funds in 1972, so the organization's major source of income is the alumni drive, which accounts for $12,000 of the $40,000 yearly budget. PBH is the only student organization not responsible to the dean of students but to the president and the fellows of the University.

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The volunteers at PBH experience both exhilaration and pain in the course of their work.

"If you get a Din Gov 30 you don't feel like your whole life has crumbled, because you know you're out in the real world, doing something important," Ujifusa says.

Manos's idealism is balanced by a recognition of PBH's limitations. "Sure we help in the community, but it's only a drop in the bucket. How much can we do? That's a good question," she says.

One thing many PBH volunteers have noticed is the feeling they have when they return to Harvard after a day in the community. Ujifusa describes the feeling as "amazing. You realize that this (Harvard) isn't the whole world."