Frontier Life Percolates in Dunster Halls

In many ways Dunster lies on the frontier of the College. Physically it is the most removed, politically it is the most "conscious," and socially it is the most daring.

The experimental spirit of Dunster men has reached forth into almost every phase of undergraduate activity, and even beyond. First to inaugurate forums where discussions range from socialism to semantics, the House has most recently innovated student-taught classes in the fine arts of rhumba, contract bridge, and barber shop harmony.

Athletics, to a degree, are sublimated in a variety of social extravaganzas which culminate in what is known across the Cambridge Common as the social event of the year--the Dunster Spring Masquerade.

No Extremist Views

Despite its distinctive character, extremist views of the Dunster domain are largely unjustified. The first Harvard edifice to greet the Charles River pilgrim from Boston is neither a hotbed of Marxists nor South American insurgents.

Dunster men, to be sure, take their politics seriously, and only recently a dining room clash was touched off between petition circulators for and against UMT.

The House has somehow acquired a Rio Grande reputation, perhaps originated in the interest of the genial Housemaster Clarence H. Haring '07, Bliss Professor of Latin American History, who at one time collected South Americans with data on the Spanish colonization of Peru.

Music lovers, comprising a small but influential segment of the Dunster population, make extensive use of the Library's record collection and of the practice facilities which grew out of the recent $5,000 grant to all the Houses.