Watson Says Open Mixers Are Banned

Student organizations and House Committees will no longer be permitted to hold wide-open mixers, Dean Watson, member of the Faculty Committee on Houses, said yesterday.

"Mixers will have to be predominantly Harvard-Radcliffe affairs from now on," Watson said. "Only outside students who share a common interest with the organization holding the affair will be admitted--M.I.T. Young Democrats may attend a YD mixer here, for example," he explained.

The policy apparently eliminates the practice of staging mixers with unlimited invitations to various women's colleges.

Unescorted girls may attend only if they have been formally invited. "Single gals from Boston institutions can come if details are arranged with dorm officials," he said.

Dean Watson stated that the Committee on Houses had resolved to restrict mixers because the huge numbers of people who attended were causing a fire hazard by exceeding the limits set by fire laws.

Lowell

"At Lowell House this fall, lines of girls waiting to get into a mixer extended out of the dining hall, through the courtyard, down Holyoke Place, and to the corner of Mt. Auburn St.," he said.

Students have been crowded "eyeball-to-eyeball" during several of this year's mixers and fist-fights have resulted, Watson said. More than 2,000 students--and non-students -- attended the Leverett House mixer causing an almost chaotic situation, he added.

"Girls--and even boys--as young as 13 or 14 have been admitted to mixers in the past and that is obviously undesirable," Watson said. Parents of local teenagers, as well as both Harvard and Cambridge police have filed complaints about the mixers, he said.

"At some mixers the girl-to-boy ratio was twenty-to-one," Watson said. "Many, many girls arrive by the busload, wait for hours to get in, and then are left high-and-dry because there are not enough boys to go around," he added, "and this causes much ill-will."

Details

Dean Watson explained that students would still be in charge of the running of mixers. "No policeman or caretaker will check bursar cards," he said. "We're going to work out final details on this problem with the HUC," he said.

"We're leaning over backwards to be reasonable but the situation has gotten out-of-hand," Watson said. "Yet the situation is considerably worse in other places--Yale, for example--where hordes and hordes of girls attack the place every weekend," he said.