Proposal Aims to Limit Range Of Assigned Weekend Houses

An ad hoc committee of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life will propose a plan in April to modify the weekend House dining system for freshmen.

The plan will call for the assignment of freshmen to a smaller number of Houses per year for weekend eating.

Francis M. Pipkin, associate dean of the Faculty and chairman of the CHUL, said that the present weekend House dining system was initiated in 1972 with the primary goal of acquainting freshmen with the different Houses on campus as well as the upperclassmen living in them.

"Most freshmen asked said they didn't know the Houses or the upperclassmen well enough in so short a time," Pipkin said yesterday.

Under the new plan, freshmen would be assigned to fewer Houses throughout the year--"perhaps two, but any number more than one, which is too small, and less than all the Houses assigned now," Pipkin said.

Pipkin added that "quite an effort" would be required for freshmen to get to know all the Houses. He said that a more "realistic plan" would have freshmen become familiar with just a few Houses.

Frank J. Weissbecker, director of the Food Services Department, yesterday cited the financial benefits of the weekend dining system. An estimated $190,000 per academic year is saved when the Union is not used on weekends. He added that this amounts to approximately $35 in annual savings per freshman.