Winthrop Selection Process Was Fair

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Most of the facts in John A. Cloud's editorial, "No Time for an Ideal" (April 22), are accurate, but his suggestion that the Winthrop House student pre-law tutor selection committee was unfair is untrue. As he said, a student committee of eight, including six women, two African Americans and one Asian American, considered the applications of and interviewed four candidates for the position of chief pre-law advisor. I served as the tutor advisor to the committee and did not have voting privileges.

The house administration decided to limit the initial search for a chief pre-law advisor to the current non-resident law tutors for two reasons. First, it strengthens the tutorial system to give non-resident tutors the first shot at resident positions. Second, and most important, since the chief pre-law advisor oversees the entire pre-law advising program, a cumbersome bureaucratic process, it was imperative that the person have experience in advising and specific experience with Winthrop's advising system.

From a total of about a dozen non-resident law tutors in Winthrop House, the four tutors interviewed were the only ones who applied. It was unfortunate that this group did not include any women candidates. However, as Cloud noted, out of four candidates, one was an African American and one was an Asian American. In addition, to ensure that the students did not feel undue pressure to choose one of these four, I announced from the beginning that if these candidates were not suitable, we would extend the search to include others.

After interviewing the candidates, Cloud proposed to the committee that they extend the search. It was put to a vote and the majority of his peers chose not to adopt his suggestion. In his editorial, Cloud misrepresents the reasons given for the loss of his motion. Although it is true that some students mentioned time constraints, the primary stated reason why the majority chose to reject Cloud's motion was because they were satisfied that the process was fair and that the candidates were all of acceptable quality.

Cloud's fellow students who volunteered to take the time to serve on the committee do have "time for ideals" as well as the sensitivity to keep the relative ranking of candidates a private matter. However, just as Cloud is absolutely wrong in suggesting that our committee was unfair, he is absolutely right that Winthrop needs a diverse tutorial staff. This is a major concern of the house staff and the students. As it happens, we still have openings for non-resident tutors for next year and welcome applications. Greg Mobley   Resident Tutor in Religion   Winthrop House