Survey Reveals House Woes

The most pressing issues facing Houses are advising, Senior Common Room participation, quality of facilities, and supporting intellectual development, the Committee on House Life (CHL) reported at its meeting yesterday to discuss the results of last semester’s House Life survey.

The data revealed that students tend to interact with residential tutors in a casual social setting more frequently than in an academic advising context. It also indicated that students feel safe and secure in their Houses, but that they do not interact much with housemates outside their blocking group—possibly because of the physical structure of the Houses.

Still, said Director of Information Services Karen R. Menard, “You do see a lot of variation among the Houses in terms of the House community.”

For example, the extent to which students felt their Houses supported their intellectual development differed significantly among Houses, prompting an extensive discussion at the meeting about this issue.

The data compiled from the survey were summarized in a forty-minute slideshow presentation by Menard to the CHL, a group of administrators, House masters, and students. The results of the survey—which had an overall response rate of 47 percent—were broken down anonymously by House.

Menard organized the information along the lines of the survey’s four categories: evaluation of tutors, evaluation of pre-professional advising, sophomore transition, and House environment.

Associate Dean for Residential Life Suzy M. Nelson said the survey was useful for House masters and other administrators as they work to improve areas of weakness specific to each individual House.

Nelson supported the idea put forth at the meeting of releasing the names of the two or three Houses that performed most strongly in each area so that they could provide the other Houses with a usable model.

“I did like the suggestion of showing top performers...so [under-performing Houses] know to whom they should talk, and we can absolutely do that,” Nelson said.

The next step in using the data will likely be to have small groups of students work with their House administrators to make changes based on conclusions drawn from the survey results, Nelson said.

“The [House Committees] should sit with the House masters and talk about the findings,” Nelson said. “I think it would be more effective if it was done at the local level.”

—Staff writer Aditi Banga can be reached at abanga@fas.harvard.edu.

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