To Dine in Peace

Once upon a time, Adams House had a problem. It seemed that many students from other Houses, tempted by its convenient location and tasty food, were making use of its dining facilities. Adams didn’t want to be rude, but it had to do something about the overcrowding that had led to food shortages, unpaid overtime for dining hall workers and an atmosphere more like Grand Central Station at rush hour than the easy collegial milieu they’d come to expect.

They employed one partial remedy after another—humiliating interlopers with a sonorous gong, identifying residents with fashionable ID stickers emblazoned with the Adams seal—but nothing quite worked. Eventually, after Pforzheimer defeated Adams in a “war” of nutrition, which included a football game, a tug-of-war battle and a musical theater production, Adams agreed to “adopt” Pforzheimer House. Residents of that Quadded fiefdom partake of the joys of Adams dining without having to resort to any subterfuge or indignity. But all other non-Adamsians wishing to enter its veritable cafeteria paradise were subject to the same inconsistently-enforced interhouse dining restrictions that were in place. And there, in 1999, the issue stood.

But the interhouse intruders didn’t stay away. And fed up once again with their classmates’ feeding habits, the Adams House Committee has instituted tighter enforcement of interhouse restrictions.

Though it might seem cruel to turn away Quadlings or Matherites—desperate for a bite between classes—these restrictions are a necessary step to alleviate Adams’ absurd congestion. But they are only part of the solution. With perfectly good dining halls like Quincy’s and Lowell’s just a few blocks away, those who seek a hot lunch near the Yard should never have to go hungry simply because Adams shuts its doors to them. Such convenient river Houses should follow Adams’ example and each adopt one of the remaining Quad Houses as a sister House—possibly through the central planning of Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS). Mather and Dunster Houses should also get privileged dining access to Houses near the yard. This way, students from distant dorms will be able to take advantage of nearby dining options without all converging on Adams.

Furthermore, better communication between the semi-autonomous House divisions within HUDS would be of immense use. As it is, many of the problems Adams has experienced can be traced to poorly-coordinated, apparently arbitrary interhouse dining restrictions in other Houses—policies that have often seemed as if they were made by people with no access to any statistical information about Harvard students’ dining habits. For example, when a House hosts a faculty dinner or enforces its dining restrictions particularly strongly, it is inefficient and counterproductive for nearby Houses to tighten their restrictions in anticipation of the overflow.

HUDS, of course, has a wealth of information in the form of swipecard data, which monitors exactly when and where each individual student takes his or her meals. There is no reason such a great resource can’t be put to use immediately. And the sooner HUDS completes its projected renovations on the dining halls of Dunster, Mather and Quincy Houses, the less pressure there will be on Adams’ beleaguered facilities.

With such a range of simple steps available, it should not take long at all to ease the pressure on Adams’ dining hall. The day will soon come when every Harvard student, from the farthest Quadling to the most comfortably-situated Adamsian, can eat in peace and convenience.

Dissent: Adams, Stop Complaining

The Staff is wrong to approve of Adams House’s strict new enforcement of interhouse dining, and the suggestion that each centrally-located House adopt a Quad “sister” will only exacerbate the problem for residents of the nine other River residences.

Nearly every first-year prays to end up in Adams House, and the advantage of its great location far outweighs the slight inconvenience of having a crowded dining hall during peak times. Residents of Adams should stop being so whiny and learn to live with the masses.

Or, if that torture becomes unbearable, they can always transfer to Mather or Currier—Houses whose sense of “community” is rarely compromised by wandering riff-raff. HUDS can better use its resources by shifting staff and—if necessary—transferring dishes between Houses to accommodate changing student eating habits. But another crucial step would be to open an alternative to fly-by in a central location, such as the Holyoke Center. This eating establishment would alleviate the rush on Adams and offer stranded quadlings (and Dunsterites) convenient food on the go.

—Lia C. Larson ’05 and Nicholas F.B. Smyth ’05