Does the House System Need a Facelift?

The announced retirement of long-time Eliot House Master Alan E. Heimert '49, the last of the Old Guard of Harvard's house masters, has raised questions about the direction of a house system that seems to be in constant flux.

Heimert's move, along with the decision of Currier House Master Gregory Nagy to step down at year's end, leaves two houses in limbo as they search for masters.

And while two undergraduate houses are entering transitional periods, a third will simply cease to exist. The phasing out of Dudley House as an undergraduate house and the immediate affiliation of transfer students with residential houses will also have an uncertain effect on the house system.

Harvard's unique house system began under President A. Lawrence Lowell in the early 1930s. According to Lowell, the plan was patterned after the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges and designed "to unite learning with the fine art of living."

The immediate trigger for the plan was a gift of more than $13 million--enough for seven houses--by Edward S. Harkness, a 1897 graduate of Yale. When Harkness appeared in Lowell's office with the offer, it is said that it took Lowell about 10 seconds to accept.

Since then, more houses have been added, housing has been made co-residential and the Quad houses have become part of Harvard. But perhaps more importantly, the decades since President Lowell first hatched his house plan have seen a gradual evolution in attitudes towards undergraduate life and the very concept of a house system.

In the earlier years of the house system, house masters were appointed for life. As such, the system gave birth to a host of self-styled Harvard patriarchs who took pride in shaping houses in their own images. But the days of the masters-for-life are long gone.

Now, masters are appointed to five-year terms which can be renewed with minimal effort (very few masters stay for exactly five years).

The last vestiges of The Old House System were all but eliminated last year when Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 implemented a plan which gives students only limited choice in selecting their houses. In the system's early years, students applied to houses as if they were exclusive private clubs. Some houses accepted residents based on status and financial standing.

Critics say Jewett's system of "non-ordered choice" threatens to neutralize the distinctive characters of certain houses (Eliot's Heimert has been a strong opponent of limited choice). But the drawbacks of non-ordered choice seem minimal when compared with the prospect of a totally-randomized house assignment system--a plan which Jewett has said he personally favors.

The Master's Role

A Short History of Harvard College suggests that the original duties of a house master were well-defined in a job description for masters of a medieval college at Cambridge, England: "To give his most earnest attention to all matters, spiritual and temporal, within or without, remotely or nearly concerning in the house...and...to defend the rights of the House, so that the scholars might peacefully and diligently pursue their studies."

The definition in this year's Handbook for Students is a bit less detailed. It states that the master and co- or associate master "are responsible for the overall management and well-being of the House community."

That vague job description is elaborated upon by 23-year veteran Heimert in a booklet distributed to Eliot House residents. The master, he writes, "is charged with promoting the House's 'general welfare' (the senior tutor is officially responsible for the particular). What the 'general welfare' involves, and how it is promoted, are questions to which the answers seem to change annually or even, it sometime seems, from month to month."

Heimert described his role as offering encouragement and occasional advice, but he writes that he and his wife "have been, for the most part, cheerleaders."

That said, house masters do befriend some students. They serve on committees and they hold open houses and teas. When they had life tenure, they were more likely to impact the tone and personality of their houses, but even today, they have the opportunity to shape the house character. And of course, all these duties are in addition to regular teaching or administrative responsibilities.

"It's very hard to be a house master," said William H. Bossert '59, who has been master of Lowell House for 16 years. "There's just enormous time pressures," he said, citing teaching, research and administrative commitments. As a consequence, he said, "often you find people who just burn out very quickly."

"Student expectations for House masters are greater than they can deliver," Bossert said. He added that house masters are "not as important in the University as they once were," in what he called the "age of golden house masters," such as John H. Finley '25 and Eliot Perkins. In those days, said Bossert, "you were a house master first and a professor second. That doesn't work anymore."

"The thing that keeps us going is the real respect and thanks that we have from students," Bossert said.