Renovations, Plans Are Coming For Quadrangle, House System

Perhaps the biggest and most immediate problem facing administrators and students is what to do with the House system.

The unpopularity of the Quad Houses, and the large numbers of sophomores living outside the House system--about 360 this year-- have left the administration with little choice but to change the system, or leave a status quo that is unsatisfactory to almost all concerned.

In the next few weeks, students will receive a letter from the dean's office explaining the various housing options that the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life will be debating this fall.

Those options include:

* Doing nothing;

* Improving the Quad sufficiently and then instituting a system where rising sophomores have no choice in selecting Houses;

* Housing all freshmen at the Quad and turning the Yard into upperclass Houses; and,

* Instituting the so-called 1-1-2 system of housing all freshmen at the Quad and all sophomores in the Yard, and placing juniors and seniors in the River Houses.

Each option has its pros and cons. The status quo has in its favor no additional costs. But it fails to deal with the problem of assigning rising freshmen to the Quad against their wishes and does nothing for sophomores remaining outside the House system. Improving the Quad and instituting a system of no choice could preserve the mixture of four classes of the Quad Houses.

But with this plan 20 per cent of the sophomore class would still remain outside the House system.

It is questionable how much full-scale improvements of the Quad would cost. Some people involved in weighing the House options feel that $5 million in renovations, including a new master's house and a new dining hall, may be enough to bring the Quad up to the River Houses' level of popularity.

Another $10-million plan, which includes the construction of athletic facilities on Observatory Hill, has also been considered.

Putting all freshmen in the Quad and making Houses out of the Yard solves the Quad popularity problem, opens up new opportunities for freshmen, and allows an increase of about 200 students into the College by crowding freshmen.

But the plan requires additional capital to turn Lehman Hall into a House dining hall, and to turn the Freshman Union into a dining hall for both the Union dorms and Dudley House.

Memorial Hall would also have to be reconverted to a dining hall as at the turn of the century.

The third option, 1-1-2, or putting freshmen at the Quad, sophomores in the Yard and Upperclassmen in the River Houses--would present the most radical change. This plan would solve the Quad popularity problem, allow an increase of about 500 in the College with extreme overcrowding in the Quad, and increase educational possibilities.

Under the plan sophomores could be grouped by concentration and departmental contact could be increased significantly.

However, the cost of the educational experiences, including the possibilities of a sophomore dean's office and a separate tutorial system, could be prohibitive.

There are other proposals, such as putting all freshmen in the Yard and converting the Quad to three-year Houses, but the possibility of these plans being adopted is small.

Slim Money

The choices are difficult, and the money to work with slim. But there is intense pressure from administrators and some students to come up with some alternative for next year.

Although the final choice rests with Presidents Bok and Horner, any change will have to be fully endorsed by the CHUL, the Faculty, and most importantly Dean Rosovsky.

The changes, particularly the 1-1-2, have major implications for undergraduate education, and such moves must be integrated with the decisions of Rosovsky's task force on education