Masters Approve Later Dining Hall Parties

Official parties in House dining halls—such as the Adams’ Masquerade and Pfoho 54—can rage until 2 a.m., House Masters decided at a meeting yesterday.

The one-hour extension will apply to Friday and Saturday night parties in House “public spaces” that do not serve alcohol, announced Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 last night in an e-mail to Undergraduate Council leaders and administrators.

Council leaders had said they were concerned that the proposal, which was unanimously supported by the Committee on House Life (CHL) last spring, might be held up by recent disturbances in various Houses.

Quincy House will not permit any parties for the second consecutive weekend after a series of fire alarms. Adams House has banned kegs indefinitely and limited parties to 40 people. Most recently, Eliot House cancelled Brain Break after what Master Lino Pertile termed “a particularly savage” mess left in the dining hall Monday night.

But according to Currier House Master William A. Graham, “The matter of recent disturbances did not come up in our discussion of the party hours issue, nor do I see the matter as directly relevant to the decision.”

Lewis warned that the 2 a.m. extension, which is merely being tested for the rest of the year, could be jeopardized by what he said seems to be an unusually high number of recent noise problems and hospitalizations associated with parties.

“I would note that such disruptions, were they to persist or increase, would not work in favor of making this change a permanent one,” Lewis wrote in the e-mail announcement.

Brian R. Smith ’02, who is vice-chair of the council’s Student Affairs Committee has led the council’s effort to lobby for extended hours and said that the next step is to convince the Masters to extend private party hours as well.

Initially, Smith said, the council treated party hours as a single issue, but ultimately it was decided to push the dining hall party initiative first.

“It’s better to get one of the two rather than nothing,” Smith said.

Masters sitting on CHL last spring did not appear to be necessarily opposed to a general extension of party hours, said council President Paul A. Gusmorino ’02, but such a change to dorm room party hours did not seem likely.

For one thing, when Smith presented the council’s plan to CHL last spring, tutors had already signed their contracts for the 2001-02 year. These contracts only require that tutors monitor parties until 1 a.m.

In spite of this, Smith said he hopes the students on CHL will be able to lobby to extend private parties until 2 a.m. by the spring semester.

Graham said he has no guesses as to when in the future the Masters may consider extension of private party hours.

“The issue of extending all party hours or how the Masters feel about it seems to me to be moot,” Graham wrote in an e-mail, “so long as Cambridge ordinances do not allow parties at which alcohol is served after 1 a.m.”

Gusmorino said he thinks the more important battle has already been won, since it is only at House-wide dining hall parties at which the 1 a.m. closing time is strictly enforced.

“Parties that people have in their rooms in practice do extend until 2 a.m. or later,” he said.

—Staff writer David C. Newman can be reached at dnewman@fas.harvard.edu.