Apley Will be New Tutorial Base As Commuters Gain in Status Fight

Until this fall Apley Hall was a rather dismal old dormitory used for storing people who didn't quite make it into the Houses. But starting this month Apley has been transformed into an enormous white hope.

The transformation was accomplished with little trouble on May 13 last spring when the University announced that the first three floors of Apley would henceforth be devoted to tutorial offices for communting students. At the same time Charles Preston Whitlock, associate director of the Bureau of Study Council, was named Senior Tutor of the Commuters Center.

With the new office space in Apley, commuters and their tutors will now be able to meet with more regularity, and in a somewhat less hectic atmosphere than was formerly provided. Until this year the only place where Dudley tutors and commuters could get together was the Non-Residents Center itself, and even there lack of office space meant that such contacts were impossible except at mealtime.

This in itself was an improvement over what the non-resident had endured for many years. Until 1951 he was forced to sit back and glower while the rest of the College enjoyed the informal company of faculty members at meals. "Breakfast table education," a vital part of the Harvard scene, was completely lacking so far as the commuter was concerned.

True, Dudley had a staff of "faculty associates," but there were only five of these men, some of whom showed a distinct reluetance to have their luunches in the hot and crowded Dudley cafeteria. Commuters themselves felt a trifie stigmatized by having to eat with "faculty associate" instead of "tutors."

Last year Dudley's Graduate Secretary, Robert Fischelis decided to do what he could to improve the Center's tutorial situation. Three more men were added to the staff and its name was officially changed to the Dudley Boar dof Tutors. A tutors' bulletin board was set up and was soon snowed under by notices.

In fact, the new tutorial plan was so successful at Dudley that it threatened to crowd itself out of existence. There was just no place in Dudley Hall for the rapidly-expanding program to go.

Thus it was that Apley was in part turned over to the Commuters Center as a sort of intellectual annex for tutorial sessions. This, along with the appointment of a Senior Tutor for Dudley just as for the Houses, should do a great deal this year in raising the morale of a traditionally outcast group of Harvard men.

Since 1931 when non-residents began to band together consciously as such to eat lunch in the basement of Phillips Brooks House, they have been fighting a relentless battle to achieve equal status with resident students. The battle has been hindered by a basic philosophic split between University officials who proclaim "Improve the commuters' lot by improving their Center," and an opposing group which contends "Integrate the commuters with the House system."

Because of this fundamental difference in how to treat the problem of that seventh of the College which commutes, the University has done very little on the whole problem. For one thing, there was little use in spending money to improve a center which might have been abolished completely in an integration move.

Dean Bender, although he also strongly favored assigning all upperclass commuters to the Houses, admitted in his Report on Advising that there are "strong practical reasons against abolishing the separate Commuters Center." Therefore that same report gave Dudley an equal status with the Houses on the matter of Senior Tutors.

As senior Tutor of the Non-Resident Students Center, Whitlock, like his seven counterparts, will be concerned with:

1. Advising students on individual problems.

2. Serving on the Administrative Board to consider major disciplinary cases.

3. Working closely with faculty departments to arrange tutorial and departmental advising.

4. Working closely with the Centers own student committee to develop a Dudley social, athletic, and educational program.

But the main problem faced by Whitlock, and one which will bother none of the other Senior Tutors, is the task of erasing a wholesale inferiority complax.