Council Sets Lottery Response

Rushing to respond to the College's plan to randomize the house assignment lottery, the Undergraduate Council's residential committee appears increasingly likely to back a compromise proposal of "non-ordered choice," committee members said this week.

But council leaders' haste to respond has unsettled former total-choice advocates on the committee, who say the quick endorsement of the plan is stifling debate and represents a capitulation to the perceived hard-line stance of Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57.

"It seems to me the wheels are turning," said council residential committee member James Fowler '92, a proponent of total choice. "I would put all of my money on 'non-ordered choice' now."

Council debate comes as house masters meet today to discuss lottery reform, focusing on a memorandum issued by Jewett Monday explicitly outlining house demographic patterns the dean has said undermine diversity.

The dean, who early this fall promised to implement at least 50 percent randomization into the lottery, said Monday he finds the non-ordered choice proposal an "interesting idea." The dean this week passed the proposal on to University statisticians, who are evaluating how well the plan would diversify the houses.

The plan, first introduced by committee Vice Chair James M. Harmon '93, allows first-year student rooming groups to list four, unranked houses into which groups would be randomly assigned. Only if all four choices were filled before a rooming group's turn would students be randomly assigned to a remaining house.

But opponents of randomization on the residential committee say bias in favor of non-ordered choice has blocked the committee from fairly considering alternative proposals.

"People who came up with other plans had an uphill battle, and that has discouraged any discussion of other plans which could work," said committee member Bridget C. Asay '92. "It is disappointing because I don't think that non-ordered choice preserves very much choice in the system for students."

"I'd prefer to see a compromise which has more choice in it, but I am not optimistic about hearing a new one," Asay said.

Some committee members said that although many council members want to preserve the status quo of maximum choice in house assignment, they sense that council leaders are pressing for non-ordered choice out of political desperation, and a conviction that the council will gain if it appears to have won a compromise with the dean.

"A lot of people are acting out of fear. They are afraid that if they don't at least partially give in, that Jewett will do whatever he wants," said H. Lewis Wolfgang '93, a member of the Committee Against Randomization who has observed several residential committee meetings.

Residential committee members said they willcomplete a proposal by next Monday, to go beforethe full council on November 19. The committeeoriginally had been prepared to reach a decisionlast Monday, but set its deadline back when thecouncil adjusted its calendar.

Jewett--who said this week that he will make adecision no earlier than December--said he hopedthe council would not rush to a decision, and thatthey would instead continue to engage in an opendiscussion on the issue.

"The council has been told that Dean Jewettreally doesn't want us to make a decision soquickly," Daniel H. Tabak '92 said. "This iscertainly the most important thing the residentialcommittee will be doing this year, and I think weshould get it done right rather than get it donequickly.