Straus Common Room

With the loss of the Straus Common Room to a University office, the promising freshman social program has suffered an unfortunate defeat. Cramped for usable space even before the Administration swooped into Straus, proctors and Union social planners are now searching desperately for another site. They had been hoping to use Straus for freshman dances, and, as last year, a series of entry parties with Wellesley. Now, however, the only other possible spots are the over-large and gloomy Union Common Rooms. Union rooms upstairs are shackled by fire regulations requiring specified battery-lights before they could be used for social affairs.

The new Straus inhabitant is the Office of the Special advisor to the President, a fund-raising outfit whose importance obviously gives it a strong claim on whatever facilities it needs. Originally settled in Massachusetts Hall, the Office has grown by leaps--and bounded into Straus early this fall.

From a University point of view, the priority of this Office over freshman activities is unquestioned. But Freshmen have a point of view too,--and it's pretty blunt. Straus was intended for Yard social activities, and not University business enterprises. And this year, when plans for freshman affairs are buzzing as never before, such a bureaucratic squeeze-play is having a damaging effect. The University should reconsider Operation Straus, fit the Advisor's Office in somewhere else--if possible--and give freshman society back its much-needed common room.