New Houses in Allston Would Help Student Life

To the editors:

I am delighted to learn from your editorial “Allston Plans Gone Awry” (Sept. 23) that the University is considering building undergraduate Houses across the river. Although I am not involved in the plans of University President Lawrence H. Summers’ or the University’s, I have long thought (contrary to the editorial) that it would be inspired for the College to build one or two—or more!—Houses along the river side that now accommodates only fans for soccer and rugby games.

This is some of the best real estate on campus. It is beautiful, close to classrooms, and next door to the other river Houses. The area is more closely knit with the heart of the campus than is Currier House—or, for that matter, Mather House.

Building additional Houses would give all the Houses a little more elbow room. My central hope is that this extra room would afford the College the opportunity to offer more abundant and attractive classroom space in the Houses, thereby integrating the intellectual and social lives of students in the ways in which the Houses were always intended. I have taught courses in the musty and windowless basements of Eliot and Dunster, and infelicitous as those spaces were, those experiences nonetheless led me to see that the vital intellectual life of the College is profoundly invigorated when teaching and the house intersect.

I can imagine a Harvard where seminars and even lectures routinely take place in the Houses. But as every House Master can attest, this will require more House space than we now possess. Why not, if we can, build a House or two just across the River?

It seems absurd to suppose that undergraduates cannot cross the Charles River, the most picturesque scene on campus. It has been done before: thousands of undergraduate athletes cross the river every day, and, although this is another story, some of the best streaking when I was an undergraduate took place on the shady side of the river. Let’s not be too stodgy; let’s entertain the possibility that the Allston campus might be used not merely for the University but also for the College.

Russell Muirhead ’88

Sept. 24, 2003

The author is an associate professor of government.