Pforzheimer

In recent years, Pforzheimer House attracted a large minority and pre-med population which has, in turn, shaped the house's character.

But in the age of randomization, building a community--even in the smallest house on campus--will mean more than having an MCAT study break or hosting Black Students Association events in the dining hall.

And although as much as 60 percent of the senior class has been pre-med and the house boasts "a very large minority community," according to Co-master Hanna Hastings, building a community not centered on any particular group will not be as difficult as when she first began.

"I don't think [building a community is] going to be harder here than anywhere else," says Hastings, who announced that she and her husband, Mangelsdorf Professor of Natural Sciences J. Woodland Hastings '66, will be retiring as co-masters at the end of this semester.

For Pforzheimer House, randomization is a case of history repeating itself.

Although Pforzheimer has been a top choice among students for nearly a decade, Hanna Hastings remembers a time when living at then-North House was scorned by students.

"At one point, the kids listed the 12 houses and we were 13th," says Hastings of the time in the early 1970s before the University completed a $38 million Quad renovation. "There were years when actually no one chose to live here. So we were totally random."

Looking into the future, Hastings says that it will be far easier to build a cohesive community next year than it was under the old system of de facto randomization.

In those years, every student initially did not want to live in North, says Hastings.

But, smiling, she adds that "by the end of the year, most of them wouldn't live anywhere else."

Hastings and her husband say that during the early 1970s they and the tutors built a community by meeting with students in small, informal settings.

The Hastings' attempts to reach out to students marked the beginning of faculty dinners, now a longstanding tradition in every house.

The Hastings would host small brunches in their house with roughly 30 students so that each resident could have a chance to meet the masters in an intimate setting at least once.

"We'd get a group of 10 [students] and go for walks out to the lakes," says Woody Hastings, adding that house residents would often join him for bike rides as well.

Despite the masters' efforts to build house spirit, it was until after the renovations that North became popular.

"We haven't been randomized for years--not since we became beautiful," says Hanna Hastings.

Secretary of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences John B. Fox Jr. '59, the former dean of the College who chose to renovate and to move off the list-of-12 system, says he made that decision with an eye towards evening out the popularity of the houses.

"The system...had always, in my view, had a weakness because it created such a distinctive pecking order among the houses and I thought that was really unfortunate," Fox says.

"I thought we ought to get to a much more level playing field," he says.

In addition to the change in how students were assigned to houses, Fox's decision meant that North would no longer house first-years. The conversion to a student community that all lived in the house for three years provided stability and greater house spirit, according to Hastings.

Since that time, Woody Hastings credits his tutorial staff and the house governance system for creating a strong sense of community among residents.

That community, however, is lacking some elements it had when it was more random.

One area in which randomization will almost certainly affect the house is in the number of athletes living there, says Hanna Hastings.

"We used to have half the football team and half the hockey team when we were random," Hastings recalls, noting that only a handful of athletes currently live in the house.

But like his wife, Woody Hastings is very optimistic about the future of Pforzheimer.

"[The new masters are] not coming with the students having an attitude about the house," he says.