More Tutor Surveys On the Way in Houses

The Committee on House Life approved with little fanfare yesterday a tentative plan for 10 of the 12 Houses to offer student evaluations of resident tutors during January—though such evaluations continue to draw some opposition.

The committee also formalized the extension of party hours for House-sponsored parties, the extension of universal keycard access hours and the loosening of requirements for transferring Houses during its first meeting of the year.

While some House masters have expressed in the past misgivings about the move to evaluate the effectiveness of resident tutors, questioning whether students knew enough about the role of tutors and noting that the tutors comprise only part of the House experience, the plan was approved with little debate yesterday.

Following the example of Cabot House, which kicked off a pilot evaluation program last February in an attempt to address student concerns about the quality of House life, the electronic tutor evaluations would take place during a 10-day period in January for those Houses that plan to participate, said Eliot House Master Lino Pertile, who was instrumental in forming the plan.

Eliot, Kirkland and Pforzheimer also offered surveys last spring.

“It is important to do the evaluations all at the same time. Students will be more likely to participate if we do it all together,” he said.

Pertile added that the committee has heard the concerns of those who have issues with the survey, but said the evaluations would be valuable because they would make students feel more a part of the Houses and the House system.

Leverett House Master Howard Georgi, who was not at the meeting, said he had not heard of that plan and that Leverett would not participate in the move.

“It’s not something that Leverett House will be participating in. I think it would not be positive for us,” Georgi said, adding that he has been discussing the surveys with House residents for “quite awhile.”

Though he declined to enumerate yesterday why he disapproved of the evaluations, he sent an e-mail to the other masters last year as discussion became more serious, arguing that the surveys would only be detrimental to his House.

“We think of Leverett House as a very large family,” Georgi wrote. “Like a family, it is organized in a very complicated and not entirely logical way...But it works because we are in a community in which people care for one another.”

He also wrote that he does not think evaluations are the answer to working out the kinks.

“When something is not working, we don’t think that the way to deal with it is to have people fill out forms,” he wrote to the other masters. “That generally leads to a hardening of positions and more polarization. We live together. We can do better than that.”

Leverett House resident tutor Kate Holbrook echoed Georgi yesterday in criticizing the evaluations, saying they would interfere with natural interaction in the House. She also used the analogy of a family to describe Leverett.

“In Leverett House, the cons of evaluating the tutors would outweigh the pros. In families you don’t fill out forms rating each other,” she said.

It was unclear yesterday which other House will not be participating in the survey.

But other House masters said they would participate in the online evaluation, saying it would provide a valuable means of feedback.

“I see it an analogous to course evaluations,” said Cabot House Master James H. Ware. “It raises people’s investments if they know there’s going to be an evaluation.”

The one drawback would be if students were to criticize tutors who intervened in “a valuable way,” though that same concern could also be an issue with course evaluations, he said.

How valuable the information is that the surveys find, though, is unclear. Pforzheimer’s survey last spring found no surprising information, according to Master James J. McCarthy. In addition, its timing last year was ineffectual.

“In order to be useful, we needed to know that information before decisions of the continuation of certain tutors were made,” he said, “but it’s important to note that it’s not the only piece of information.”

The Lowell survey was filled with qualitative questions about everything from what activities students attended to what they thought of their masters.

For the most part, there was little complaining in Lowell, with 90 percent of the respondents indicating they thought highly of their entryway tutor.

Undergraduate Council Representative Rohit Chopra ’04 said he believes it is important that students have an opportunity to assess their House tutors.

“Students should be able to communicate with their masters [about the tutors] or else the tutors are just getting free room and board,” Chopra said.

The committee also agreed to formalize changes instituted last year on a trial basis to allow House-sponsored parties to go until 2 a.m. instead of 1 a.m. and for universal keycard access to be extended permanently in the Houses until 2:30 a.m.

The party hours extension does not apply to parties thrown in individual student’s rooms.

Both issues had been hotly debated in previous years, but after semester-long trial periods passed without incident, the measures were approved yesterday with little note.

“It is a law in Cambridge that parties end by 1 a.m., but the Cambridge Licensing Commission has given Harvard a special exemption,” Chopra said. “[The extension] actually makes the city happy because now there are more non-bar options.”

Since the spring trial period of the 2:30 a.m. keycard extension brought none of the problems that some masters had originally predicted would occur, Chopra said he hoped the committee would eventually implement full keycard access around the clock—a longtime goal of the Undergraduate Council.

“Hopefully masters will realize that [24-hour universal keycard access] is what’s most convenient for students,” he said.

As for inter-House transfers, the committee approved a measure to make it easier for students to transfer to another House without a “host.”

Traditionally, as students applied to switch Houses, preference was given to students who knew with whom they would live.

Students without hosts were less likely to be placed in the House of their choice.

“[The new policy] is good news for people who are not happy in their current housing situation,” Chopra said.

—Emily M. Anderson contributed to the reporting of this story.