Resident Tutors Talk Over Problems; Denounce Meal Cuts and Rent Threat

Forty-nine resident tutors met Sunday night at Quincy House to discuss cuts in meals available to resident staff, potential rent charges and other issues affecting tutors.

The group issued a statement deploring all policy decisions, "made in the name of financial expediency, that threaten the functions of resident staff in the Houses," and set up a Resident Tutors Committee which will consist of two representatives from each House.

The Committee will meet later this week to discuss further actions.

Richard G. Leahy, assistant dean for Resources and Planning, said yesterday that while he did not disagree with the group's statement. "They've neglected to mention that it's the students who must pay for all this." He said there had been no cut in allotments for tutors' meals this year, but merely a return to a fixed budget for each House.

He also said that the "great inequities" in the assignment of rooms to tutors might mean that "it's not unfair to charge the tutors in preferable quarters some rent--it's still less than they'd pay anywhere else."

Other issues raised at the tutors' meeting included the small number of woman and minority-group tutors and the possibility of saving money by increasing the efficiency of the Food Services.

Kenneth R. Manning '70, resident tutor in Dunster House, said yesterday that there are 25 black tutors and proctors at Harvard and Radcliffe, and suggested that this might be caused by selective enforcement of the requirement that tutors hold appointments from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Many black applicants for tutorships, Manning said, are at the Law, Medical, or Business Schools.

Kenneth H. Levison, assistant senior tutor in Lowell House, suggested yesterday that Food Services' inefficiency had forced excessive expenditures for tutors' meals and thus curtailment of the meals they were permitted, and had even led to consideration of closing House dining halls on weekends.

The meeting was organized by Deborah H. Hallett, assistant senior tutor in Quincy House, and Elizabeth Teitelbaum, resident tutor in Adams House.