Jewett Renews Call For Random Lottery

Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 yesterday said he will press forward with plans to randomize at least 50 percent of the first-year students' housing lottery even if it means overriding a dissenting minority of house masters.

The remarks in an interview with The Crimson yesterday reopened public debate over whether total students choice has eroded diversity in the College's 12 residential houses.

That concern, which climaxed last spring with the failure of a masters' plan for partial randomization of some of the houses, appears increasingly likely to be settled by the dean this fall as masters return to the fractious battle lines they drew last spring.

"If the masters were in agreement we wouldn't be in this situation now," Winthrop House Master James A. Davis said yesterday. "There's reasonable reason to believe Jewett may have to decide."

But several masters voiced dissatisfaction with the prospect of being forced to accept a plan they deem unnecessary.

"First you take the students' choice away, then you take the masters choice away--you have a system that seems too centralized," Adams House Master Robert H. Kiely said last night. Kiely who nonetheless said he will go along with the dean's ultimate decision, said he felt the present system of student choice provides sufficient mixture and diversity in the houses.

Yesterday Jewett reiterated plans to present masters with a proposal in October based on demographic breakdowns of the houses showing failures of diversity. While details have not been made public, Jewett did say his plan would require all houses to participate.

The plan would also allow larger rooming groups and greater flexibility in house transfers as a concession to students, the dean said.

But the insistence by some masters that diversity was not a problem--and their refusal to participate--helped kill the 25 percent randomization proposal last year.

Jewett said that diversity is a campus-wide concern and insisted that some houses fail to meet the University's intent that each house represent a "microcosm" of the College.

"There are many areas, at least in some houses, where there is substantial variation from the ideal goal that we want for the houses," Jewett said.

But dissenting masters yesterday maintained positions from last year, coming out in defense of "distinctive" house character and masters' authority to decide the make-up of their own houses.

"If the name of the game is to make the houses interchangeable, I don't see the point there--it is nice for the houses to have certain flavors," Winthron House Master James A. Davis said.

"The students like it, the masters like it--they are proud of their distinctiveness," Davis said. Dunster House Master Karel F. Liem agreed with Davis.

But several masters also backed Jewett's plan, especially those in houses which are not characterized by aspecific stereotype. In a Crimson poll last springAdams, Eliot and Kirkland House were listed bystudents as the three most stereotyped houses atHarvard.

"I'm not against raising the randomization ifthe majority of the masters and students are forit," said Cabot House Master Jurij Striedter.

Currier House Master Gregory Nagy calleddiversification a "worthy idea," adding that hesupported the "spirit of what the dean is saying."

Nagy and other masters said they were awaitinginformation promised by Jewett