Winthrop Calls for Hot Breakfasts

The Winthrop House Committee unanimously voted Monday night to send a letter to Dean Fox calling for a reinstitution of hot breakfasts at each House, even if the move would necessitate a $30 board increase.

The vote comes on the eve of the first day of a two-day breakfast "eat-in" at the four Houses serving hot breakfasts. Student organizers have called the demonstration to register their opposition to the breakfast plan.

After a presentation by Nancy Rose '80, one of the organizers of the demonstration, the Winthrop House committee encouraged all students to attend the "eatin."

"We feel it won't make a difference if the committee advocates hot breakfasts unless we agree to pay the extra $30. Unless we do that, the University is bound financially," Mark D. Gearan '78, president of the committee, said yesterday.

Savings

Fox limited to tour the number of Houses serving full hot breakfasts, beginning this semester. He said the move would save about $100,000 per year and would allow the College to open the Freshman Union for meals on weekends without increasing board fees.

"The cost of attending Harvard is a very significant factor in people's decision to apply or to come here," Fox said last May, adding, "We've decided not to let the tuition go up unless it's absolutely mandatory for the University." Fox could not be reached for comment last night.

Officers of the Mather House Council met with Fox last May to express their dissatisfaction with his breakfast decision. Two weeks later, 165 students from Mather and Dunster Houses, where hot breakfasts are no longer served, formed the "Eggshell Alliance" to protest the breakfast decision. The group marched to Leverett House, one of the Houses serving breakfast under Fox's plan, and purposely crowded the breakfast line there.

Last May, the North House Committee endorsed an $18-to-$30 board increase to fund hot breakfasts in all 12 Houses.

The committee requested that each House Committee post a petition advocating the board increase and the return of hot breakfasts. The effort netted more than 500 signatures.

The committee did not act on a proposal made at Monday's meeting to invite Fox to breakfast at Winthrop House in an effort to persuade him to reinstitute hot breakfasts.

Robert J. Palay '78, the member of the House Committee who introduced the resolution calling for the return of hot breakfasts, said yesterday he believes Winthrop residents and students at other "cold-breakfast Houses" paid as much in board as did residents of "hot-breakfast Houses" yet received inferior services.

"In comparison to the $7000 a year we're paying to come here, the $30 is inconsequential when you're taking away a major service," he said.