RADCLIFFE HOUSES

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Student bureaucracy is dull, alas, but in your article of February 28 on the Radcliffe House System you have made it even duller. In fact, if not in the CRIMSON, East House has done more than "schedule several events." We have instituted lunch hours (from 12:30-1:45 in Eliot and Whitman); we have held a series of Sunday teas with members of the Administration, the Faculty and the Radcliffe Institute; we have had two and plan three more House Dinners with Faculty, undergraduate and graduate students interested (though not necessarily specializing) in a particular field, such as music, social relations, Latin America and Fine Arts. We have in addition sponsored two concerts and are planning a dramatic production in the spring.

All these activities were undertaken by the old East House Committee. The new Committee will further benefit from the help and enthusiasm of Dr. and Mrs. Thimann as well as from our recently named Faculty Associates.

So long as the House System is no more than a bunch of colorless names and colorful cupolas it deserves a reaction of apathy, if not disdain. But once a Committee looks beyond the obvious architectural and spiritual separateness of the dormitories and finds functions that answer a specific need, the House can develop a valid ralson-d'etre, and command respect, if not gung-ho enthusiasm. Such needs that we feel we have partially met are those of increased contact with older members of the academic community, especially women in graduate school and the Institute; the purely practical function of longer lunch hours, and, through the House Dinners, the opportunity to meet people who share one's interests and not just one's dwelling place. Suzy Scarff '62,   Chairman,   East House Committee