Houses Hush Cell Phones

Increasing cellular phone use on campus has prompted several Houses to discourage their use in dining halls and to remind students to turn them off during class.

Lowell, Mather and Cabot Houses have already released statements by e-mail and on their Web sites asking students to turn off cell phones in dining halls and classrooms.

School officials say while the new cell phone policy is not a ban, it is a request that students be more courteous by either turning the phones to vibrate mode or talking outside.

"[The new policy] is more a suggestion, a request to make life more livable. We simply ask that students step a few feet outside," said Eugene C. McAfee, senior tutor of Lowell House.

Some tutors said that with dining halls overcrowded and loud, less noise from phones would benefit students.

"Anything we could do to minimize noise and activity is to the students' advantage," McAfee said.

In an e-mail message, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 wrote that "the concern is not just the ringing but the holding of telephone conversations in the dining halls which tend to ignore the presence of others in a way that is rather discourteous."

Currently, each House can determine its own policy and actions.

In the e-mail message sent to Mather residents, there is no indication of whether disciplinary action will be taken against those who do talk on their phones in the dining hall.

But some students say they are willing to comply with the requests anyway.

Emily N. Wallach '01, an owner of a cell phone, is "not at all inconvenienced" by the new request regarding dining halls.

"Talking on a cell phone while in lecture is preposterous," she added.

"I see no reason why anyone should talk on a cell phone in the dining hall," said Emily G. Heyward '01, who does not have a cell phone. "I wouldn't want to eat next to someone talking on a cell phone."

The messages also request that students turn their cell phones off during classes

"I would certainly hope that all students will turn off their phones in classes," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message. "After three went off at a freshman-week parents panel, and another went off in church at a funeral I was at...I do think it is worth remembering that it is only courteous to silence one's phone in such settings."

Lewis has put a similar comment in the syllabus of his own course, "Computer Science 121," this year.