Student Plan Would Set Up Coed Housing

An HUC-HRPC-RUS committee is trying to set up an experiment in co-educational living in three Harvard Houses and Radcliffe for next Fall.

The group has the support of the Masters of Adams, Winthrop, and Lowell Houses, Stephen J. Ellmann '72, committee member, said yesterday.

One-third of the residents of the three Houses, volunteers only, would exchange rooms with Cliffies under the proposed plan. "We feel that we have a chance of getting such an experiment approved if we present a simple, clear cut plan in which all of the details have been worked out and which the Masters have approved," Joseph J. Thaler '70, committee chairman, said.

The three Harvard Masters emphasized that the problem of authorization and many practical problems still must be worked out.

William Liller '48, Master of Adams House, said, "I hope that the experiment will work. The idea of an experiment has received criticism by people who say it is fun and games. it is not. It is a deadly serious matter."

Thaler said that the legal problems of having such an experiment before merger would probably not be too great. He mentioned exchange programs at Vassar and Wheaton, as well as Harvard's combined housing in Claverly Hall as examples of situations in which students live away from the place responsible for them.

"I'm anxious to be helpful, to do what the great majority of the students would like," Zeph Stewart, Master of Lowell House, said. "But we have rooming problems in Lowell. The idea of going through assignments again for next fall makes me feel very tired."

Richard R. Baxter, Head of South House at Radcliffe, said, "I am whole-heatedly in favor of coeducation. I would like to see it brought about as soon as practicable. I know people want it--and not after they graduate."

The committee plans to poll students this week to find put who would be willing to move or to switch rooms, an how many people favor the plan.