Students Lose Choice, Voice

Although it is unclear whether the changes in this year's housing lottery will increase diversity in the residential houses, they have demonstrated one thing: students have little influence in decision making at the College.

The plan to reserve 25 percent of the space available in eight of the residential houses for random assignment this spring has highlighted the inability of even the most organized student resistance to have their input considered.

Since the changes in the lottery were first proposed by house masters last fall, students have consistently opposed them. The Undergraduate Council condemned the plan in December, and after Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 announced the new system earlier this month, more than 1000 students signed a petition protesting the changes.

But when protesters delivered the petition to Jewett, even the dean and the house masters were quick to say that the plan was already a fait accompli.

It is perhaps ironic that the house masters themselves have been divided over the plan. That conflict is responsible for the new system itself--a compromise between those who favor complete randomization and others who back the current system.

"The compromise is really bad," said petition organizer M. Scott Murhpy '92. "Randomness should be all or nothing."

But as the date of the lottery approaches, it appears less and less likely that the new system will be changed.

And even as the new housing lottery has generated controversy from all sides, administrators and masters agree that the results of the new system may be entirely inconclusive.

"All this process does is reduce the amount of choice given to students," said Council Chair Kenneth E. Lee '89. "I don't think it is going to change the composition of any of the houses."

Masters in Adams, Eliot, Lowell and Winthrop Houses have refused to implement the plan, stating that although the changes could benefit some house communities, it is unnecessary in their own.

"We feel like we are not heavily out of line with the rest of the College," said Winthrop House Master James A. Davis.

Some have speculated that what may prove to be an unsatisfactory compromise will ultimately end in completely random assignments. Jewett and other administrators have maintained in the past that they would favor a completely random system.

But some masters are completely opposed to that idea.

"I am a little disturbed by the way this modest experiment has now become a way of talking about total random assignments. I would be infuriated if I was told that I had to go random," said Eliot House Master Alan E. Heimert '49.

Others disagree about their intentions for the plan. "This was in no way originally seen as a dry run for a total random system," said Davis.

But while debate continues over the merits of the new system, critics maintain that little will be changed in the house communities after randomly assigning one-fourth of the available space for the Class of '92 in eight houses.

"Everybody is a little worried that after all this fuss there will be little that is different," said Davis earlier this month.

Random assignments have consistently increased over the past four years, rising from 6.9 percent randomly assigned in 1985 to 11.9 percent last year, according to statistics from the Housing Office.

Jewett has maintained that the changes could result in random assignments increasing 10 to 15 percent from last year, but administrators in the Housing Office and in the Office of Instructional Research and Evaluation were unwilling to estimate how much of an effect the new system might have.

"It is impossible to tell," Housing Officer Lisa M. Colvin said yesterday.