Nature of Yard Rooming Group Was Misrepresented

To the editors:

I am writing to correct some misinformation that was printed in your article about freshman housing (News, Nov. 2). In the article, you refer to the "skewed racial distribution" of one of the rooming groups in my part of the Yard (Weld Hall, Matthews Hall, and Canaday Hall), in which you inaccurately state that "four of the six women [in the room] are black."

In reality, the room you are referring to has two African American women, two Caucasian women, and two Hispanic women. All six of the women are very lively, and indicated that they wanted to live with very social people who also shared their interest in music (Rap, R and B, and Reggae). For this reason, I placed them together in one room.

If you look carefully at the rooming groups that I have assembled, you will see that there is diversity throughout my part of the Yard. I do consider ethnicity when I put together rooming groups, but not in the way that you have suggested in this instance. During the summer before the freshmen arrive, I spend countless hours reading their housing applications; in putting together rooming groups, I attempt to have a good mixture in each entryway, with students from diverse geographic and ethnic groups, who also have complementary interests and living habits.

It was surprising to me to see that the Crimson inaccurately identified the inhabitants of the one room of mine that they chose to highlight, and it is upsetting to see my efforts misrepresented in the article. I hope that you will be more careful in the future in reporting on such an important topic. ELEANOR SPARAGANA   Nov. 2, 1998

The writer is Assistant Dean of Freshmen.

EDITORS' NOTE: The original racial classification of the students was based on characterizations by one of the roommates. In conversations with the students since the price's publication, two have identified themselves racially as white, three as African-American and one as Hispanic. Dean Sparagana's original assignment was based on the students' application forms, where two identified themselves as white, two as black and two as Hispanic.