Bridal Suites

For almost all resident tutors, marriage is a sin which inevitably banishes them from their House. The Masters harbor no personal animosity toward matrimony, but there is almost no room for tutors and their wives in the older Houses. In all the Houses except Quincy and Leverett less than ten married tutors, most of them Allston Burr Senior Tutors, live now as residents.

A dozen resident tutors a year must leave the Houses because they get married. Yearly they go through the inconvenience of finding another apartment and yearly the Masters go out and look for replacements. The necessity to leave involves more than inconvenience. The tutor who leaves after a year or so has only begun to attain the familiarity with the House's students and their problems that was to make his living there worthwhile. The fact that he has had to leave certainly discourages the good men who, although planning to marry, would like to become tutors.

Some resident tutors want to move out when they marry. Non-resident tutorships mean fewer distractions and fewer duties. But several married tutors have said they would prefer the closer contact with undergraduates that a resident tutorship provides. Little can be done for them until the older Houses decide to reconvert some of their rooms into suitable apartments.

Deconverating a room involves little more than installing kitchen equipment. The operation is costly, but has been accomplished in a number of freshman Halls and in two or three rooms in the older Houses. The University administration would clearly like to encourage more accommodations for the married. The two most recent Houses, Quincy and Leverett, provide as many married tutor apartments as the rest of the Houses combined. Yet the Masters of the old Houses have not as yet seen fit to list such room deconversions among their pressing needs.

The present overcrowding in the Houses, which makes any immediate deconversion of rooms difficult, may explain this reticence. Yet the principle reasons for the crowding--the draft call, the absence of a tenth House, and the restrictions on living off campus--are not all likely to last forever. It would be sound idea, considering the time required to secure funds for major improvements, for the Masters to begin suggesting the room deconversions now.