College Mulls Rule Changes for House Events

The College has begun considering ways to improve how Houses manage events where alcohol is present, including possibly standardizing guidelines across the different dorms.

Approaches being considered include creating explicit guidelines across Houses and increasing communication between student organizers and administrators.

The College has recently started exercising greater control over student events involving alcohol in hopes of decreasing unsafe and underage drinking.

The changes to House events are under consideration by administrators, House masters, and House Committee (HoCo) members.

The proposals, discussed at a meeting yesterday of the Committee on House Life (CHL), would apply to all non-private parties affiliated with Houses, with the exception of Stein Clubs.

Associate Dean for Residential Life Suzy M. Nelson said the committee is seeking to make events both safe and legal while ensuring that students can still have fun. The House masters addressed the same topic at a meeting on Wednesday night, she said.

Nelson said the House masters will comb through all the suggestions and likely agree to certain consistent standards.

“What we really want to do is just get consistency so everybody’s doing it in a similar fashion,” she said after the meeting.

The proposal for greater standardization was first suggested by Undergraduate Council Vice President Matthew L. Sundquist ’09. Some, however, expressed only qualified support for it after the meeting.

“I’m both for and against standardization. While I think University policy is good to have and apply to the Houses, there are very different things that happen in different houses,” said Lowell HoCo Co-Chair and CHL member Laura G. Brent ’08.

Undergraduate Council Student Affairs Committee Chair and CHL member Michael R. Ragalie ’09 also said masters and students have a distinctive connection as a result of both living and working together, creating a “natural alliance” between them.

“Every House is different, and I think the relationship between the students and the House masters is always very good, so it makes sense to let them work out how they want to do things in their Houses,” Ragalie said.

Committee members also discussed ways to facilitate more discussions about event logistics. They expressed broad support for encouraging face-to-face conversations between event planners and House administrators to address issues such as party advertising and crowd control.

“I think the students are responsible for the events, [but] I think we are here to help them,” Nelson said.

The issue of room capacities was also a key part of the discussion, since committee members said they felt many events get out of control when there are more people than should be in the space.

Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II also suggested limiting the number of major events per weekend to make sure that each has an adequate number of police officers and Beverage Authorization Team members.

Ultimately though, committee members felt that the changes will not have to be drastic.

“People will still be able to have parties and alcohol will still be available,” Brent said. It might be in a slightly different form or managed in a slightly different way, but I don’t think this has to be a crisis either on the side of the deans or of the students.”

—Staff writer Victoria B. Kabak can be reached at vkabak@fas.harvard.edu.