The Radcliffe Dormitory:

The Harvard man with his venerated House system can be just about as solitary as he pleases. But at Radcliffe, where corridors replace stair-wells, where individual rooms replace suites, and where communal bathrooms are the rule, a girl is virtually forced to be sociable.

Although a Radcliffe dormitory may well suffer from what Elliot Perkins '23, master of Lowell Houses, calls "the uncivilizing effect of long corridors," it may also be said to have the "civilizing" effect of forcing sociability on its inhabitants. For from the moment she rises to brush her teeth in the morning until the time she signs in late at night, the Cliffite is constantly made aware of her communal existence.

"Committed To Dorms"

In some respects, Radcliffe has imitated the Harvard House System. The proposed dormitory for 1958, for example, will include rooms for resident tutors. But in reality, the new hall will be no closer to a House, in the Harvard sense, than are the present eight dorms just off Garden Street. For as President Wilbur K. Jordan recently emphasized, "Redcliffe is committed to a dormitory system which cannot be adapted to a House plan."

A Radcliffe room is not a suite with living room, bedroom, and private bath. Instead, it is in most cases a small single or double room designed for both sleeping and studying. Consequently, a Radcliffe girl who desires seclusion must put a sign on her door saying "Do not distrub (except for telephone calls)" or "Dead End."

Not even within the privacy of her own room, however, can a Radcliffe girl do exactly as she pleases without regard to others. Although her roommate might not mind how sloppy she is, the Cliffe-dweller can't escape the eagle eye of the proctor who comes around for a weekly inspection. And under no circumstances can she keep an alcoholic beverage in her room.

Noisy Corridors

Many times daily the twin forces of necessity and custom force the Cliffite to enter into the communal life of her dormitory. In most of the dorms, a rising bell at 7:30 a.m. first awakes the residents to the fact that they are living in a communal building. In addition, fire regulations forbid the Cliffite to smoke or cook in her room, thus forcing her to take cigarette and coffee breaks with her fellows in her floor smoker or kit-chenette.

The no-smoking-in-rooms rule leads indirectly to a major problem of the "uncivilizing" long corridors-noise in the halls. Since the halls in most dorms are one of the few places where smoking is permitted, girls are inclined to take their cigarette and chatter breaks outside of someone's room.

The result necessitates an elaborate system of quiet hours and proctoring. Theoretically, during quiet hours (which comprise practically the whole of every weekday except for short periods around lunch and dinner time), talking in the halls is forbidden and musical instruments cannot be played. The enforcement of these rules, however, varies with the dorms and proctors. Oftern the noise level forces the diligent worker to take refuge in the basement study room.

Study Room Euphemisms

There she tries to disguise her actual occupation by using a whimsical form of nomenclature to designate these underground study retreats. Most of the dorms call them "game rooms," and legend has it that one Barnard Hall freshman arrived, chess set in hand, because she had heard that the dorm had a "game room."

Actually, however, these retreats have seldom been the sight of any game more athletic than trying to skim and digest a 400-page book in an hour. Since Moors calls its study room "the bike room" and Holmes terms its "the lounge," one is in-clined to suspect that the Cliffite is indeed sensitive about her reputation as a grind.

Even getting telephone calls at Radcliffe, as most Harvard men know, is not an entirely personal matter. The Cliffite receives calls through the dorm bell system, an elaborate array of buzzers, wires, and little colored lights, which operate daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and slightly later on Sundays and holidays. After hours, the bell desk turns into a pumpkin, and the Radcliffe Cinderella, unless she has a private phone, is virtually cut off from the outside world.

Communal Work Program

Taking bell desk duty is a part of the Radcliffe work program, which allegedly keeps down the price of room and board. Instead of the Harvard situation, where scholarship boys work to pay their own way through school, all the Radcliffe girls work to lower their common rates. Besides bell duty, the Cliffite can also don white apron and hair net two or three times a week to "wait on" in the dining hall.

Life in the dorms is not all work and no play, however. Each girl pays compulsory dorm dues, and can get her money's worth by attending the hall's social functions. These include the famed twice-yearly Jolly-Ups, Sunday afternoon tea hours, and weekly open-house nights, when the dorm stays open until midnight in stead of the usual 10 p.m. After dinner sociability takes the form of demi-tasse in the living room, with the head resident pouring coffee into miniscule cups.

Social Highlights

Highlights of the all-college social functions are the Chairstmas and Spring formals. These weekends include the rare treat of entertaining young men in one's individual room, but only from 2 to 4 on Sunday afternoon. Here again, the Radcliffe girl is plagued by the community, for she must leave her door open while she entertains.

In contrast to her Harvard counterpart, the Radcliffe girl cannot wander out of her dorm when she feels like it. To stay out of the dorm later than 10 p.m., when the doors lock, the Cliffe-dweller must register in the sign-book for all to see. Unlike some women's colleges, at Radcliffe a girl does not have to sign the name of her date, but only her destination, with as little specificity as "Boston movies," "Square," or "Corner."

Several years ago Everett House residents livened its sign-ins by using a colored pencil system to indicate the calibre of their dates. A yellow sign-in signified "intellectual conver-sation," green meant "walk and eat," blue indicated "movie and dancing," and red "a perfectly swell time." A purple signature meant "all this and Heaven, too."

Signing in and out of the dorm is done on the honor system, with each girl owning a key to the front door. Warnings are issued for tardiness up to 15 minutes, and later violations are punished by "social pro." This means that the offender must endure one Saturday night of staying in the dorm.

"Typed" Dorms

Although the Radcliffe dorms are very different from the Houses in most respects, they have tended to be "typed" in a somewhat similar fashion. Radcliffe girls, for example, may think of one dorm as embodying "gracious living," and others as populated by socialites, or by girls bent on little gold bands, or on little gold keys, as the case may be.

It is more difficult, however, to type the residents of each dorm at Radcliffe than of each Harvard House, chiefly because of the mobility of residence from year to year. Freshmen are original assigned to dorms with the intention of creating a typical cross-section rather than a characteristic atmosphere, but they are allowed to change dorms in succeeding years.

More fruitful than typing the individuals in a dorm is trying to dicern an atmosphere characteristic of the hall. Dictinctions arise from variation in the facilities, in the staff and in the personality of the house mother--how willingly she gives late permissions, how stringently she enfroces the rules, how well she is acquainted with the individual girls.

Need For Expansion

Dissimilar as they may be in some respects, the University Houses and the Annex dorms both face the same need for expansion. In 1930, when five of the present eight dorms were standing, the Radcliffe Yearbook reported: "There is room for every single girl, be she freshman or senior, New Yorker or Cambridgeite. There is no such thing as living in an 'outside house' and running over to a dorm for meals."

The same cannot be said today, when all eight brick dorms are filled to capacity, and when there are ten off-campus houses being used for the overflow. Since the statement of 1930, three dorms have been added--Cabot, Moors, and Holmes.

With the completion of Comstock Hall, the Annex Administration predicts that "Radcliffe will be able to provide housing for any student who desires it." And although the interior design has not yet been determined, one thing is certain--the living will be communal.At dinner each day, Radcliffe students follow their head resident into the dining room and remain standing until she is seated. At the end of the meal they again rise until the diners at the house mother's table have filed out of the room.