Masters Review Rules Covering Senior Bars

Last week, house masters reached a consensus that this year's nominally outlawed senior bars should be held in common areas, and that decision raises questions about the role of the masters in enforcing College alcohol policy.

In recent years, administrators have looked the other way when learning of senior bars, which took place in students' rooms because the College banned them in 1987.

This spring, however, masters seem to be reversing the ban, in the hopes of restricting the parties in a more effective way--by bringing them back into public areas. But this recognition stops short in the development of a uniform policy for restricting them. Consequently, parties at various houses are taking different forms.

Masters at different houses say they believe a method of enforcement is left to their personal discretion because of the vagueness of University policy.

"I conceive my role to act [as master] in the interest of the house and the students, within the law of the College," says Reisinger Professor of Slavic Literatures and of Comparative Literature Jurij Striedter, who began his tenure as master of Cabot House this fall.

Striedter says inconsistencies in College guidelines leave the masters free to interpret alcohol policy, adding that he thinks this freedom is appropriate because the party situation varies from house to house.

"Within the guidelines, decisions [regarding senior bars] should be as much the ability of master's discretion," says Striedter.

Kirkland House Master Donald H. Pfister says individual house rules must be the bottom line in regulating senior bars.

"There is a sense of agreement [among masters] that senior bars in public places are okay as long as they conform to the guidelines in the house," says Pfister.

"We have a kind of party policy in place that is in accord with College policy," he says. "Any kind of party in Kirkland House is going to follow the guidelines of the house," he says.

"We've all agreed that we want to work together so that no house is an exception," says North House Master J. Woodland Hastings. "But it is difficult to make a single, uniform rule [for all houses]."

It is unclear whether the masters plan to develop rules to regulate senior bars next year.

Some masters, have begun telling seniors to throw the parties in public rooms in the house, thereby ensuring that they follow College guidelines. Currier, Leverett and Winthrop have already held parties in common areas, and students in Cabot House are planning two upcoming parties in common rooms there.

Striedter says he told the two students who were planning senior bars in private rooms that they could either cancel the parties or move to public rooms, where tutors and a Beverage Authorization Team (BAT) would be present.

Striedter says the parties were advertised campus-wide with "ambiguous formulations." He cites a line inviting "seniors and members of the house" to the parties, which he says can be taken to mean all members of the house, including students who are under 21.

"It was clearly against the rules," he says. "In this special case, it was the only possibility to decide house to house by the masters."

Other houses--such as Adams and Quincy--continue to allow the parties to go on in private rooms.

Among those masters who say they support public senior bars, there is a debate over whether to subsidize the additional costs accrued by making the parties public. Students estimate that meeting University rules that require a BAT team and police--as well as a temporary liquor license--cost more than $200.

Masters in Leverett and Winthrop have helped fund senior bars in their houses, but Striedter says he decided not to finance Cabot parties because the students had not planned to tell him about their plans for private parties at all.

Professor of Sociology James A. Davis, master of Winthrop House, said earlier this week that he helped fund a senior party last weekend because the students were counting on funding that reneged. He emphasized that he does not support funding the bars.

"I do not think that this is a sufficient priority that Harvard resources should fund it," Davis says. "They are still private parties."