Co-ed Living Plan Outlined by HPC

A report released by the Harvard-Radcliffe Policy Committee concluded that coeducational living accommodations should be set up at Harvard and Radcliffe.

The report was drawn up by Kenneth Kaufman '69, president of the HPC and was unanimously adopted by the HPC Tuesday. It emphasizes the need for more informal relations between Harvard and Radcliffe students, and makes specific suggestions for how these might come about. It recommends:

* a trial exchange between Harvard and Radcliffe students, for next semester

* the eventual institution of permanent coeducational housing for everyone in the college

* possible coeducational living in Mather House

* open interhouse between the dining halls as long as separate dormitories exist for Harvard and Radcliffe.

The report also suggests the establishment of a multipartite commission made up of students, Faculty, Administration, members of the Board of Overseers and of the Corporation. This commission would consider the question of coeducation at Harvard, and, hopefully, come up with a report by the end of the spring term.

The HPC is still uncertain about who has to approve the proposed exchange. It has sent copies of its report to the Harvard and Radcliffe deans, to the masters of the Harvard houses, and to Mary I. Bunting, President of Radcliffe.

Kaufman said that the exchange program would involve as many dorms and houses as possible. In the Radcliffe dorms, Harvard students would probably occupy whole floors. In the Harvard houses Cliffies would have their own suites.

The HPC circulated a questionnaire about the exchange in December. This showed that 80 per cent of Radcliffe and 65.5 per cent of Harvard supported the exchange. Sixty-three per cent of Radcliffe students and 42 per cent of Harvard said that they personally would be willing to participate in it. However, some unwilling students might have to be involved.

Two years ago, when two dorms at Cornell were made coeducational, some of the people in the dorms protested. Kaufman's report was that everyone in those dorms now approves of the situation, and that Cornell is planning to make all the dorms coed.

The Harvard houses are now the main setting for social activity, and they are primarily male institutions, the HPC report said. Similarly, Harvard students feel awkward about eating in Radcliffe dining halls, it says.

"The present system of limited coeducational contacts is so detrimental in so many ways that it makes a change in the pattern and style of coeducational life at Harvard mandatory," the report concludes.