Making a House a Home: Life Behind the Ivied Walls

Many participants in the Harvard community might place it squarely in the dark ages, but the ancient and venerable custom of awarding feudal estates and lordly priveleges to the deserving few no longer parallels the choosing of House masterships.

Whether it ever did so is an open question, but now a Harvard House mastership is less than a universally coveted prize, judging by the headaches and delays faced by several Houses last year in finding new masters. Four Houses have new masters this year, while two acting co-master couples have just assumed permanent posts. Two other pairs are returning from leaves, and one is serving for a master now on leave.

The turnover rate for masters has jumped to a new and glaring high, when compared to the past when masters stayed with their Houses so long that one could envision the ivy practically creeping over them.

The longest-reigning head of a House, Charles Dunn of Quincy, is entering his tenth year as master. Alan E. Heimert '49, at Eliot, has the second longest tenure, and even the Vorenbergs, who have been at Dunster just three years, say they feel like veterans under the wave of new masters this year.

The 13 masters are briefly profiled here, as they respond to questions about the changing role of their positions.

Adams House

Richard and Joanne Kronauer

While Robert J. Kiely, professor of English and master of Adams House is taking a year off in Cambridge, England to write, Richard E. Kronauer, Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering and his wife take over the mastership and will live in Apthorp House, the traditional residence of Adams House masters.

Kronauer will be dividing his time between his paper-strewn desk in Pierce Hall beyond the Science Center and Adams House. He is interested in biomedical physics, including breathing patterns and vision and will teach a large lecture course, Applied Mathematics 105a, "Techniques in Applied Mathematics."

The gray-haired scientist, who has spent his last 29 years at Harvard will be in a peculiar position, but its peculiarity makes it ideal for him. Masters are seldom involved in science or research as Kronauer is, primarily because researchers can't afford the time that is required of masters.

Kronauer can't really afford it either but he says he is willing to sacrifice some of his research for this academic year to experience house mastership. He will be seeing his students in a social and community context as well as an academic and intellectual context. Kronauer feels that it's worth sacrificing some of his research, at least for one year, to have better contact with students.

There won't be many changes under Kronauer's command. He is acutely aware that his position is temporary. "Master Kiely is coming back in a year," Kronauer said. "It's not my role to make any major changes."

Although Kronauer has never held a large administrative position in the University, he does have a solid idea of the master's function, which he sees as primarily social. "The master tries to make the social aspects of education as rich and rewarding as possible. The House is a special place for students to get to know each other and faculty on a friendly, informal basis," he added.

The 51-year-old Kronauer was graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey in 1947 with a degree in mechanical engineering and then came to Harvard, where he was awarded a Masters of Science degree in 1948 and a Ph.D in 1951.

In the past, Kronauer devoted much of his non-teaching time to research but this year much of that time will be spent on Adams House-related functions and activities. "It's clear that the time this position demands gives you less time for the professional pursuits that Harvard values highly," Kronauer said. "I recognized this when I accepted," he added.

Kronauer's wife, Joanne, will be co-master of Adams House, and Kronauer thinks that co-mastership is "a fine idea. The involvement of the spouse is equally heavy."

Joanne Kronauer sees her job of co-master as making sure things "run smoothly until the Kielys come back." Joanne Kronauer said she's looking forward to her new position, especially the contact with students that she anticipates. "That's really what it's all about," she said, referring to student contact. "I would like to see that we have a good time with the students," she added.

With a strong interest in art history, Joanne Kronauer plans to give tours of the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass. as well as taking some art history courses either in the University or at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Under Master Kiely, student-master contacts were very good because he was always available, Kronauer said. The new master wants to maintain the quality of these contacts, and like Kiely, will try to eat lunch in the Adams House dining hall regularly. "I hope students will feel equally free to see me," Kronauer said.

Kronauer didn't think he would affect Adams House's image, again citing his short tenure, but he did admit that he was sympathetic to drama and music, two strong suits of Adams House. He added that he won't influence such activities because he wants to leave them up to the students.

So even though Adams House will have a new master this year, he will be temporary. The one-year mastership does not lend itself to huge innovations. Rather, it is more of a care-taking position. And Richard Kronauer will approach the job that way, making Robert Kiely's transitional return easy.

Currier House

Barbara and Paul Rosenkrantz

When she took a leave of absence last year, Barbara G. Rosenkrantz '44 decided to stay on as co-master of Currier House rather than travel somewhere where she could totally devote herself to her research.

"Staying at Currier House probably hurt my research, but I enjoyed my duties as master so much that I am glad I remained," she said last week.

She said she thought her mastership would be a great chore when she assumed it in 1974, but "it's been a lot more fun than I expected. I like undergraduates, but get the opportunity to teach relatively few."

Rosenkrantz, associate professor of the History of Science, is a member of both the Faculties of Arts and Sciences and the School of Public Health. Although she primarily teaches at the graduate level, she does teach one general education course, Social Sciences 114, "A Social History of Disease and Health from the Revolution to World War II."

After receiving her degree in American History and Literature from Radcliffe in 1944, Rosenkrantz spent the next 20 years working as a bacteriologist. She went back to Clark University and the Radcliffe Institute to do graduate work in history in the mid-1960s.

She received her Ph.D. in 1970 and has served as a lecturer and an associate professor in the History of Science department ever since.

She said her principle intellectual interest is "the way that medical and health sciences reflect change in ideology and practice in the process of modernization."

Rosenkrantz said she knows "a great many" students in Currier House.

"I have no trouble getting to know a great many students in the House," she said. "My residence is right in the house and I eat at least one meal a day there."

"Sometimes I think I'm even more accessible than virtue demands that I should be," she said.

She said she sees her primary role as master as providing a certain degree of continuity in an atmosphere that changes from year to year.

"As master, I must act as the representative of the faculty in the House and encourage other faculty members to come see the students," she said, adding that House life could be vastly improved through a greater faculty commitment to it.

However, she said that professors will only become more involved in the Houses when students become more receptive to them.

Their responsibilities as co-masters and their other academic responsibilities caused a "decline" in interpersonal relations between her and her husband, Paul S. Rosencrantz, she said.

"My husband is a professor at the University of Massachusetts and we have great difficulty in arranging our schedules so we can get together at the same time," she said.

"Ideologically, we have a co-mastership, but I'm the actual administrative director of the House. My husband literally has no time for the day to day responsibilities of the mastership," she said.

Dudley House

Charles and Patricia Whitlock

When he assumes the Dudley House mastership this fall, Charles P. Whitlock, associate dean of the Faculty, will be resuming a task he began 25 years ago when he was senior tutor there.

"I've always been extremely concerned about improving Dudley House, even while I had no formal ties to it," Whitlock said last week.

"Before I became senior tutor in 1952," he said, "Dudley was not even recognized as a House, but only as a non-resident students' center. It did not have a building of its own, a library, or an adequate tutorial staff."

"I became deeply involved in the process of granting Dudley House non-resident House status," Whitlock said, adding that before he left the senior tutorship in 1958 the House not only had that status but its own library, an increased tutorial staff and its own building, Lehman Hall, as well.

"President Pusey made an exception to a long-standing rule and allowed me to keep my senior tutorship for more than the five-year limit because I was practically running the place," Whitlock said. While he was senior tutor, Whitlock also served as Associate Director of the Bureau of Study Counsel and taught a General Education course on human relations.

Whitlock, who received an A.B. from Rutgers and an A.M. from Harvard, was the Assistant to President Nathan M. Pusey for Civic and Governmental Relations between 1958 and 1970 and Dean of Harvard College for the past four years.

This past June, Whitlock was appointed an associate dean and given the responsibility of coordinating the seven Task Forces reviewing undergraduate education.

He said he sees his mastership as a necessary compliment to his new administrative position. "When I was asked to coordinate the task forces I had to find some way to continue working with students. They are the fun part of the job. If I had no student contact, I might as well be working for General Motors."

"As Dean of the College, I only saw people who were in trouble. I'm looking forward to seeing an interesting variety of students as master," Whitlock said.

Whitlock said students at Dudley House, which includes commuters, those who live off-campus and in the cooperative houses and married students, are far more heterogeneous than those at the resident Houses.

"Dudley House encompasses a tremendous variety of people," Whitlock said. "There's such a tremendous turnover of students who have taken a leave of absence or gotten married that it's almost like dealing with the veterans who returned to school after World War II."

Meeting the needs of this diverse group of students will be the toughest challenge he will face, Whitlock said. He plans to send each Dudley House student a questionnaire to find out exactly what those needs are.

To create a common set of norms and make the distribution of resources to each House equitable, the central administration had to take over much of the master's responsibilities, such as master's choice, he said.

"The old masters felt their role was being eroded. They were unable to form and maintain their house's uniqueness," he said.

"The merger--although it still is in the best interests of Harvard--took some of the fun out of a mastership. It is probably responsible for the high turnover rates among masters in the last few years," he said.

Whitlock said his wife's role as associate master is primarily a "social", not an administrative one. A 1956 graduate of Smith College, Patricia H. Whitlock is employed on the editorial staff of the Juvenile Books Department of Houghton Mifflin.

Whitlock, who was a varsity swimmer in college, said he likes to relax by swimming, sailing and farming at his summer home in Anasquam.

Dunster House

James and Elizabeth Vorenberg

When Jim Vorenberg '48 lived in Leverett House during his senior year, he went to one master's sherry and says "the master's role made no impact on me." Now, as co-master of Dunster House, Harvard Law School Professor James Vorenberg says the best part of being a master is "the ability to try to make a difference in the lives of a lot of people."

James and Elizabeth (Betty) Vorenberg have headed Dunster House since since 1973. (Betty was made co-master in 1974.) They were in Paris last spring on sabbatical, while David and Ann Landes served as acting co-masters. However, the Vorenbergs flew home for Commencement to see the first class which had come to Dunster with the Vorenbergs graduate, and to hold tea for those seniors--an event which Betty Vorenberg says is the only requirement mentioned when they began the mastership.

"There has never been any description of what a master does, so it is hard for anyone coming in to know what to do," Betty Vorenberg says. However, she believes a certain amount of freedom in defining the position must be preserved: "There has to be a balance between people who give you guidelines and also enough autonomy to make the job interesting."

"On some things, there should be more guidance," her husband adds. "We had to spend too much of our first years fighting our way through B&G and other parts of the administrative bureaucracy to get what the House ought to have. The failure to systematize that leads to inefficiency."

Guidance or not, the Vorenbergs have tried a multitude of ways to bring students, tutors and masters together. As a result, they say they have a good sense of who is in the House. One advantage, Betty Vorenberg says, is Dunster's small size. Another, her husband adds, is that "Betty has a marvelous grasp on students' names."

They both emphasize the importance of the dining room, as the "unifying force in the House," as Jim Vorenberg says. The Vorenbergs eat four or five meals each week in the Dunster dining hall, and when Jim Vorenberg gets home late from the Law School, he says he often sits down in the dining hall with a cup of coffee to chat with students.

In planning House gatherings, Betty Vorenberg says "we never do anything the same. We've tried all sorts of things, and we don't have a schedule at all. With 350 students, they're all very different, so we've done different things in the hopes that during the course of the year everyone will want to come to something."

Especially popular, Vorenberg says, have been late-night pizza open houses during reading period, buffets combined with speakers, and small dinners with groups of upperclassmen and members of the Senior Common Room.

They both speak with insiders' enthusiasm about "House traditions," whether ancient or not--the coffee held by tutors on Monday nights, the annual Senior Common Room-students touch football ("they feel so affronted when the old fogies beat them--and we have on occasion," says Vorenberg with a grin), three concerts in the library every weekend, and especially the "superb grill." "Betty and I go down to the grill a couple of nights a week for a hamburger," Vorenberg says.

Then, becoming more philosophical, he adds, "The important thing is that we do not see ourselves as running a lot of activities. We create opportunities for students to run activities in the House."

The Vorenbergs have strong feelings about the role of tutors in Dunster House. "A really good House does not depend on the master's handling every problem," says Jim Vorenberg. "It depends on really good tutors in the House, and we have directed ourselves to that concern."

Betty Vorenberg says she's proud of the story she heard recently: When a Dunster tutor informed a friend of his House affiliation, the latter exclaimed: "Oh, you're a Dunster House tutor! You must work really hard."

Dunster's co-masters share administrative duties, attendance at monthly meetings, and entertainment. Betty Vorenberg believes strongly that the practice of naming co-masters is "essential. It is an enormous change, which makes gaining some recognition much easier. There has been a change in the way the administration looks at the spouses, which has helped enormously in getting the job done. The job is so extensive that if you don't share it, you can't do it right."

Because of the heavy turnover in masterships in recent years, the Vorenbergs count themselves as "old-timers," although they've only been masters since 1973. Vorenberg says he "isn't sure the job has become less popular," but if it has he thinks one of the reasons may be over-involvement in the choosing process by students. He thinks students should participate by "saying the kind of person they want, but students living in a House know a limited number of faculty members, and to think they can necessarily pick the best person is an illusion."

The other reason, Vorenberg says, is reduction in masters' discretion in some areas. He hastens to add that he believes that trend is a plus--especially the elimination of master's choice. However, reduced discretion "has been accompanied by an enormous amount of red tape. In a way it makes the job less attractive because the masters are less than lords of the manor. I think it's an improvement, but some of the old-time masters would be horrified. It's right that (mastership) not be a kind of little fiefdom."

Eliot House

Alan and Arline Heimert

After eight years as master of Eliot House, gruff-voiced Alan E. Heimert '49 has been a House master for longer than anyone but Charles Dunn of Quincy--a fact he finds hard to accept, since when he replaced semi-legendary John H. Finley '25 most of the masters around had been in their positions for 20 years or so.

Eliot House has retained an image of a preppie-jock haven throughout Heimert's tenure, despite the replacement of master's choice with computer programs. Statistically, Heimert says, there is not that much difference between Eliot and any other House, but the image remains. Heimert maintains, however, that a more appropriate picture would be a comparison between the House and a pair of jeans that someone has worn into the shower--"jam-packed, overflowing."

Once a week, Heimert and his wife hold open houses at the master's residence, with cider, donuts, beer and pretzels. "The favorite combination (I hope you're not queasy) is beer and donuts."

As House master, Heimert says, his favorite activity is 'sitting in the dining hall and rapping, meeting a variety of students I couldn't get to know through the department." And he does, in fact, visit the dining room more often than many more remote masters, although his rather boisterous personal style, some House residents say, makes it hard to get to know him really well.

Outside the House, however, Heimert says he spends most of his spare time remodelling his own house in Winchester, Ma., where he spends most weekends and vacations. Heimert has one son, aged five, and a daughter who is almost four.

Heimert stepped down from the chairmanship of the English Department last year, and this year he will teach only two courses, English 70, "American Literature from Beginning to Present," in the fall, and English 270a, "American Literature in the 17th Century," in the spring. His field is colonial American literature.

He sounds pretty happy with the way the house functions overall, and says he doesn't look forward this year to any major changes in the way the House is run. Oh, except for moving the serving line out of the dining hall (a change recommended several years ago, and only instituted this summer), which Heimert says makes Eliot House "look like one of the grownup Houses at last."

Kirkland House

Evon and Catherine Vogt

Evon Z. Vogt III, professor of Social Anthropology, returned to Kirkland House last year, one book ("Tortillas for the Gods"), and, as he tells it, 29 tennis courts (in 18 countries), and one year older than when he left. "Tortillas" is about the rituals of the Maya tribe in Mexico, and it is the most tangible product of the sabbatical that Vogt and his Associate Master/wife Mary H. Vogt took last year. But more than that single tome may ultimately emerge from their trip.

"We were really intrigued by the changes in court customs and practices in the different countries we visited, and we may just write a little paperback about tennis around the world," Evon Vogt explains.

The tennis-playing Vogts feel right at home in the athletic ambience of Kirkland House. "It's a very active House," he says. "It's not that everyone is a varsity athlete, people just seem to be doing things around here."

Vogt was appointed to a six-year term as K-House Master in 1974, but was replaced by Dr. Warren E. Wacker, director of the University Health Services, during his leave.

"I think it is important that masters not be referred to as 'House masters,'" complains Vogt. "That tends to confuse us with dorm parents."

Semantical quibbles notwithstanding, Vogt feels the position of Master remains desirable, and indeed may be improving. "The Houses are where the action is" sums up Vogt's vote of confidence in his present job.

"I hope the master's role can continue to evolve, change and grow, and as the logistics of running a House settle down, the master can assume a more active and formative role," he explains. "It won't just be the nuts and bolts."

Among the rituals which the Vogts observed around the world last year were the ceremonial "beating of the retreat" at Edinburgh, Scotland, and various Kenyan tribal rites. Among those which they hope to view in greater volume in their own House are the unmistakably collegiate rituals of ballroom dancing classes and intramural athletics.

"But the heart of our operation is to bring students into stimulating contact with members of the faculty, to set up all different kinds of programs, aimed at helping students in all different setting," Vogt says. "We're interested in helping people get into law school, medical school, etc."

While Vogt may be committed to Kirkland House, at least a small portion of his heart remains with the Mayan tribes which he has studied for nearly two decades. Vogt expects that his work in the Zinacantan region of Mexico will continue until at least 1985.

And then there's always that tennis paperback to fall back on if things get dull...

Leverett House

Kenneth and Carolyn Andrews

"We genuinely like young people and enjoy watching them grow and develop," Carolyn E. Andrews, associate master of Leverett House, said last week to explain why she and her husband had kept their mastership for the past six years while other masters have been abdicating in increasing number.

"In a sense, we have 400 children," her husband, Kenneth R. Andrews, Davis Professor of Business Administration, said last week. "We are purposefully and deliberately trying to work at getting to know each of them all the time." To meet their students, the Andrews host a weekly Friday afternoon open house and try to eat at least one meal a day in the dining hall.

"Anyone who wants to know us can know us, but we don't force ourselves on anyone," Kenneth Andrews said, adding that the actual number of students they know well varies greatly from year to year.

"It depends on how many students want to get to know us," Carolyn Andrews said. "We know just about everyone in last year's senior class, but in other years, we might not know so many."

Andrews, who is a member of the board of directors of many corporations, including Xerox and Reed and Barton, said he doesn't believe there is any incongruity between his involvement in business and his role as House master.

The two roles are more alike than they are dissimilar, he said.

Most students incorrectly view the management of the modern corporation to be solely concerned with profits, he said. "Undoubtedly, there has to be a conflict between the pursuit of profit and employee welfare. It is the job of the manager to manage this conflict in a way which is not totally detrimental to either side."

"The manager must do well, while he is doing good," he said, adding that that is essentially what a House master must do.

Andrews, who received his B.A. and M.A. from Wesleyan and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, took a circuitous route to his career in business. His graduate and undergraduate degrees were in English and American literature.

His first book, Nook Farm: Mark Twain's Hartford Circle, seems very out of place when it is included in a listing of all his writing, such as The Effectiveness of University Management Development Programs.

"I set out to be an English professor after I received a Ph.D in 1937, but I got involved in administration when I was in the Army during World War II," he said.

"After the war, I was invited to join the Harvard Business School faculty under an experimental program. I thought the very idea of my being appointed to the Business School faculty was funny, but I took the post primarily because it gave me access to the Mark Twain papers in Widener."

He said the false view many Harvard students have of American corporations is primarily the result of an educational system which "deprives them of the opportunity of learning many of the practical arts and skills which they will be employing for the rest of their lives."

"By no means am I advocating that Harvard become a vocational school. But, I do think students ought to be given some opportunity to study what they are going to be doing for the rest of their lives while they are here," he said.

Andrews said Leverett House courses, including the one he teaches on "Management in the Modern Corporation," are designed to provide students with this opportunity.

Andrews said he had some trouble getting senior members of the faculty to visit with students in Leverett House. Professors are usually "just as shy about coming into a dining hall full of people they don't know as students are."

To alleviate their timidity, Andrews said, he tries to invite professors for a specific purpose, such as a discussion of their latest book.

He said choosing tutors is the "single most important thing" that a master does. "I not only choose tutors for departmental reasons alone, but for the extracurricular activities which they can bring to the House.

The Andrews, who have two grown children, said not having any children living at home is an advantage. "The mastership is a lot of work. We might have had to neglect our own children if we had been masters when they were growing up," Carolyn Andrews said.

Lowell House

William and Mary Bossert

At 50 Holyoke Street, the residents are painting the kitchen, repairing chairs, and dreaming plans for a rose garden and a spiderlike ham radio antenna. After a year as acting co-masters, William and Mary Lee Bossert are still moving in, physically and psychologically, to the permanent mastership of Lowell House.

The Bosserts have a hard act to follow--the "traditional" mastership of Zeph Stewart. Presiding over High Tables in Lowell for 12 years, Stewart instituted many of the House's idiosyncratic traditions and threw himself into most aspects of House life, from administrative snafus and individual rooming problems to writing recommendations for Lowell House alumni.

The new co-masters have eased comfortably into the vacancy stamped by Stewart. While maintaining traditions such as High Table and Thursday teas, they are handling firmly-ingrained practices with an untraditional style. (Bossert: "Lowell House students made keeping the traditions a condition for the new masters. Students are terribly conservative about traditions.")

"They (the Stewarts) were formal and we are informal, which leads to a major difference in House social functions," William Bossert says. "I couldn't get dressed up for our Tuesday-night parties and 'receive' as the Stewarts did."

"I never had time to think about following the Stewarts," adds Mary Lee Bossert, whose elaborate cakes, pastries and other culinary artwork are Tuesday-night attractions. "We kept the traditions but I didn't worry about whether we did things like the Stewarts."

Those well-attended weekly parties have been the Bosserts' major setting for getting to know students, and the co-masters feel satisfied with their efforts in that direction. However, they plan to cut back the number of fests this year. "There were two problems: we got tired and were going broke," William Bossert says.

The Bosserts feel they have done as much as possible to get to know Lowell House students, but they recognize other differences in style between the Stewarts and themselves which perhaps make them less accessible or at least less visible to students. "Zeph went out into the House more," Bossert says. "We haven't gone out of our way to find problems in the House, but most students know we're here and available."

"We're not as good as the Stewarts were about eating in the dining hall," Mary Lee Bossert adds. The Bossert family, which includes two children (ages 12 and 14), rarely eats dinner with Lowell House, but Mary Bossert explains that by her children's reluctance to venture into the dining room.

The Bosserts can claim a long affiliation with Harvard. While originally midwesterners (he, Missouri and she, Oklahoma), they both came east to school--she jumped from art history to biology at Wellesley while he studied physics and lived, appropriately in Lowell House. William Bossert received his Ph. D. from Harvard, was a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows, joined the faculty in 1963 and holds joint appointments in Biology and Applied Mathematics, where he is Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Math. Mary Lee Bossert worked in the surgical research labs at Mass General Hospital for several years, but now the family and Lowell House fill her time.

Bossert says he accepted the mastership because "if you're serious about undergraduate education, this is where the action is. I didn't have any great misconceptions when I accepted the mastership. The position of master has certainly changed since I was a student here. It is less grand, involving less ceremony and more work--which is perfectly all right."

While the Bosserts see no major changes peculiar to Lowell House which they would like to institute they would like to see changes in the Houses generally. Bossert believes Houses should play a stronger role in teaching, by increasing the number of courses centered around Houses.

He is vehement about physical problems faced by the Houses. While he concedes that the Quad Houses need major renovation more than those by the river, he would like to see more attention paid to deterioration in all Houses. Last year, the Bosserts tangled with financial problems at Lowell House when flooding in some rooms necessitated plumbing renovation. The construction of two manholes in Holyoke St. Clogged up relations with University Hall for awhile, Bossert remembers. Lowell House students recall with distaste Bossert's "State of the Plumbing Address" at dinner in Lowell House Dining Hall one night--a speech which one resident describes as "interminable" and "ill-planned."

"Students take the master seriously," Bossert says. "Most faculty members do not. Everyone likes to be taken seriously."

Mather House

David and Patricia Herlihy

It is a far cry indeed from a converted farmhouse in an idyllic olive grove in Florence; the red brick and poured concrete that raise Mather House to an unwieldy 18 stories will, David and Patricia Herlihy admit, take a little getting used to.

David Herlihy Jr. '80 was, his parents recall, sitting in the Herlihy residence in Florence last March 17 when the phone range. It was President Bok; David Jr. thought for a moment that Bok was calling him to inform him of his admission to Harvard. Instead, Bok had a somewhat different message for his parents.

David Herlihy, professor of History, and his wife, Patricia, an associate of both the Russian and Ukranian Research Centers, were in Florence on sabbatical last year--David was a professor in residence at the Harvard-owned Villa i Tatti there--when they were notified of their selection as Mather House co-masters.

"It came as a nice surprise," Patricia Herlihy relates, "although we still don't known the whole story of how we were selected."

Well, it all worked out for David Jr. too; he was admitted to Harvard soon after (by conventional mail), and now Mather House boasts its first freshman resident. In fact, the Mather master's residence, occupied since it was built in 1972 by its original tenants, will, for the first time, be filled to near-capacity.

The Herlihys bring with them, along with David Jr., three other children, aged 9 through 18. Two older sons no longer live at home.

The Herlihys inherit from their predecessor, F. Skiddy von Stade '38, a House whose popularity dipped to an all-time low last year in the wake of an unprecedented spate of overcrowding in its cramped, unsoundproofed rooms.

This year, however, the Herlihys confidently predict that Mather will "turn the corner" on overcrowding. When the Herlihys arrived in Cambridge last month, David Herlihy reports, they immediately set to the seemingly gargantuan task of alleviating Mather's burgeoning overcrowding problem.

The immediate result of lobbying on the part of Mather students and the Herlihys has been a dramatic reduction in overcrowding--"a distinct amelioration," as Patricia Herlihy puts it. In fact, there will be three fewer students living in Mather House this fall than last fall, and no junior or senior rooms will be overcrowded.

"Our rationale is that juniors and seniors should have something to look forward to," says Patricia Herlihy. In fact, the current housing situation for upperclassmen in Mather House compares favorably with the least-crowded Houses in the University.

A longer-term problem in Mather will be to deal with the House's foundering reputation. "Hearsay, reputation, anxiety--you have to work within those confines," Patricia Herlihy says.

"At this point," she adds, "all we're trying to cope with is what we've heard about." Minor structural changes--amenities like ventilation in the now-stifling game room and coat hangers outside the dining hall--are already in the offing; others, David Herlihy says, "will be explored when the House opens--there'll have to be undergraduate input on all of this."

Mather, the Herlihys point out, is not without its inherent selling points--which include an attractive library, decent food, and a carpeted dining hall with an exclusive view of the Charles. But these features alone will not be able to compensate for a bad reputation imparted by the House's overcrowding woes. And once the line is held on student crowding, nothing short of a good public-relations campaign will gain for the house its long-awaited position of respectability. The Herlihys seem fully prepared to wage just such a campaign.

North House

John and Hannah Hastings

The Hastings don't seem to be defensive about their House's reputation as one of Harvard's least popular undergraduate residences. With barely a moment's hesitation, they cite last years Crimson House survey in which, much to everyone's surprise, North House placed fourth, and first among the Quad Houses. But despite this positive outlook, the J. Woodland and Hannah Hastings are far from complacent: they eagerly ask about other masters and how they have or have not broken the student-faculty barrier. And they are overflowing with their own plans to better North House.

Some of these plans are far-reaching. For instance, they envision a new wing to North House, connecting Moors and Holmes Halls that would increase the number of residents by 80. The new wing would also connect the three now separate buildings on the ground level.

But others are simply ideas to make the House a more worthwhile place to be, and at the same time to encourage relations between House residents and those faculty members connected with it. Those plans derive mostly from the Hastings's own interests, as if they want to share their favorite activities with their new flock. The family loves skiing for example, but has done less and less as the Hastings's four children have grown and moved away from home. The answer: plan House ski trips on the weekends during the winter. They would also like to hike with House members on Sundays or go to Woods Hole where they spend their summers. And another family interest, music will find its place in the House with a concert this fall by a Hungarian violinist.

Social events such as concerts are a good way of continuing educational development in a social context, "Woody" Hastings believes. He thinks the role of the master in the House is one of leadership, particularly to set the tone and see that the resources of the House are fully used. He sees a mastership as a major time commitment and a sacrifice at the professorial level. But he explains that he and his wife "enjoy the notion of participating with students, and are curious about it since we're not Harvard people ourselves."

Tutors, also, have an important role in setting the tone of the House, Hastings says, and he adds that he is grateful there is a student committee for identifying tutors and participating in the selection process. He and his wife also say they appreciate the system of co-mastership, explaining that they "don't expect to be at each other's throats, and if we disagree something better usually comes out of it."

Since North House sits back on Linnaean St., the House shares a backyard with professors on "Faculty Row," a line of eight modern houses facing the street. Hastings, a professor of Biology, says those houses make up a "community of faculty interaction with the House" that has been underused up to now. He adds that he and the residents, who have wanted to participate in House activities, have started an informal group to plan activities. Their first function will be a tour of Boston for incoming freshmen, followed by a boat ride in the harbor at dusk.

Hasting's work as a marine biologist has taken him and his wife, who works at the Educational Development Center in Cambridge, throughout the world. Although Hastings does not do much of the actual deep diving for his work, he loves sailing enough that "anywhere I go I try to wangle a sailboat." There is evidence of that in his Linnaean St. home, where he cooks waffles on Sunday morning and sits on brightly colored cushions on the living room floor. Standing next to the pile of cushions is a paddle he bought for about 20 cents from an Indonesian. He and his family were living in a small camp at the time, and a ferry was necessary to reach town. The ferry happened to be a dugout canoe with an outrigger sail, and Hastings joyously spent the day sailing it back and forth, collecting fees for the ferryman. He brought the oar home with him as a momento.

The Hastings's are noticeably willing to open their home lives to their students. Even in saying she loves movies and wants to take advantage of Cambridge's offerings, Hannah Hastings adds that she intends to ask students who share her penchant to go along with her. Her favorite movies are French ones, no doubt one reason the year spent in France with her family was what she calls "the greatest year of our lives."

Hastings came to Harvard in 1966--before that he had taught at numerous schools throughout the country, including Northwestern and the University of Illinois. His specialty is biological clocks and luminescence, and he has a laboratory at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole for the study of marine organisms.

But Hastings seems prepared to leave his professorial attitude at the lab; walking through North House, he points here, where new lights would brighten the place, there, where picnic tables would make a small plot of grass into a great barbecue area. He and his wife are anxious to become a part of Harvard, and given their overflowing enthusiasm, they just might be able to make North House a really great place to live.

Quincy House

Charles and Elaine Dunn

In the penthouse Masters' residence at Quincy House, Baby and Child Care is prominently displayed on the den coffee table, and the room shown first to visitors is the recently decorated nursery. For Charles and Elaine Dunn, September means the expected arrival of a new baby as well as the inevitable arrival of 400 students.

While the new addition may cramp Elaine's style temporarily (she is taking a six-month leave from her full-time teaching position in early childhood education at Simmons College), the Dunns do not plan any reduction in House involvement. Quincy House's year will start, according to an 11-year tradition started by Dunn, on September 26 with the Scottish exorcism of bad spirits--or at least their intimidation by bagpipes.

Charles Dunn's occupation and predilections all seem to lead back to Scotland--his birthplace, annual vacation spot, and intellectual Mecca. He is Margaret Brooks Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literature, and since 1963 has been chairman of that department. He became master of Quincy House in 1966.

When Dunn talks about being a House master, frequent reference is made to the "student revolution years," and clearly the confrontation with the students (as well as family problems at that time,) which marked those years are still present in Dunn's mind, mostly in contrast to the calm which reigns now. Although the context has changed, however, Dunn's conception of the role of House master has not.

"I have never had any grand illusions about the power of a master," Dunn says. "The master is a catalyst rather than a dictator or ringmaster. During the revolution, it was my duty to keep student discussion as open as possible regardless of whether I agreed." He mentions that many colleagues who did not live with students turned against them out of misunderstanding, and also turned against those who, like himself, supported them.

The master as "catalyst" is still Dunn's way. He believes a master's most important function is to support ideas and cue students on how to get things done around Harvard. He takes the same low-key attitude towards tutors, encouraging them to "find an outlet in the House," but not setting specific expectations for involvement.

"I don't do what some masters do--giving out a worksheet for tutors. I don't think it works and it's not my style. Tutors work better out of loyalty than duty." He calls himself "ruefully honest" in recognizing that tutors often get caught up in their own work to the detriment of House participation. He does not seem to feel especially responsible for requiring more activity from them.

Elaine Dunn joined Quincy House as associate master when the Dunns were married two years ago. Her title requires some involvement in House functions but does not include administrative duties or attendance and voting at University committee meetings.

Because she was joining a mastership in progress, Elaine Dunn did not have to confront all the tasks of a new master simultaneously, or to start cold making head in the House.

"My entrance was much different from anyone else's. Charles told me to do what I like best--I had the luxury of choosing for myself."

As a focus, Dunn chose to work with women in the House, and last year she held several gatherings for Quincy House women tutors and students that she plans to continue this year.

Although she believes masters' wives ought to hold a title, Dunn says she had "strong misgivings" about the practice of naming co-masters, because she believes in some cases "both were given titles but both weren't really hired."

Charles Dunn regards the naming of co-masters as "an excellent improvement which points the way for women who are wives of businessmen, for instance, to be regarded as part of the business."

Both co-masters seem comfortable with the degree of student-master contact in the House, although Dunn says he wishes he knew how to improve it. "I used to have a sign-up sheet saying I was free to go to lunch with students and no one ever came. You can always find me pouring sherry Thursday afternoons."

Dunn says he does not "feel guilty" about lack of contact with students as he thinks some masters do. He attributes this guilt complex to the "open-endedness" of the job, which gives masters no guidelines on how to approach their positions. It is necessary, both Dunns stress, to set a limit to time spent on House matters and not to take the job with a "terrible sense of requirement."

Dunn sees no Quincy House image beyond "diversity": "The search for images is fruitless," he maintains. He is especially concerned about getting as international a population as possible, and for that reason he regrets the passing of master's choice when masters could choose rising freshmen for their Houses.

Dunn says the worst part of being a master is "the tedium of meetings one must attend. I tend to be very simplistic in my view of how to do things. Most decisions are historically pre-ordained--like co-residence. It seemed silly to have a committee for that--there was no choice in the matter."

While Dunn may find those sessions tedious, he stresses the importance of CHUL in improving master-student relations. Instead of masters imposing decisions on resentful students, he says, student participation in meetings has made "students recognize the inevitability of many decisions."

From the swing set placed in Quincy courtyard by Elaine Dunn for the House's young population to the Scottish kilt worn by Charles Dunn on formal occasions, the personal preoccupations of Quincy's Masters have stamped Quincy House. However, the trademark of the Dunn's mastership continues to be "low-key."

South House

Rulan and Theodore Pian

At a time when many faculty members are turning down masterships because the position lacks its former prestige or is too time-consuming, recently appointed masters often have unique reasons for accepting the post. For Rulan C. Pian '44, master of South House, that reason was nostalgia. As an undergraduate at Radcliffe she lived on Walker St. near the Quad and she was envious of the women who lived on campus, in one of the six dorms that now make up South House. She is making up for that now, she said recently. Ironically, she will move into a new master's residence on Walker St. later this fall.

In the more than 30 years since her graduation from Radcliffe, Pian, who last year received both a joint-tenured appointment in the Music and East Asian Languages and Civilizations Departments and the House mastership, has never left Harvard for more than one year at a time. Born in Cambridge in 1922, Pian was raised and educated in China from 1925-1938. She returned to Cambridge, graduated from Radcliffe, received both a Master's degree and a Ph.D from Radcliffe College, and has been here ever since.

Pian received much attention last spring when she asked the now-famous "South House Six" to leave the House because of alleged "disorderly conduct." Pain said recently the incident, which she described as "quite a shock to myself, too," grew out of numerous letters she received, mostly anonymous, from intimidated students who feared the "six." She added that after the incident she was approached by both tutors and students in a show of support for what she had done.

That incident was one of many that point to the benefit of a co-mastership, Pian believes. She shares the role with her husband, Theodore, a professor at MIT, and she has found his assurance and different point of view to be essential. Because the two live in their own home in Cambridge (there has not been a master's residence at South House) contact with students is not as natural as other Houses. Yet the Pians have often invited students to their home for dinner, and have held teas and dorm dinners in an effort to fill what they see as the role of master--to let the students know that somebody cares.

While studying in the United States, the Pians made plans to return to China, and if possible to live or work with students there. They stayed here instead, but not without some reminders of their homeland. Sweet olive plants--a species rarely seen outside China and Hawaii, and Chinese calligraphy abound in and around their home. And in their desire to share their background and love of Chinese food with students in their House, the Pians held catered Chinese feasts last year in each of the South House halls. Students are sprawled out on the floor. There's only one rule: chopsticks must be used.

But gestures of friendship aside, South House is facing an identity crisis of sorts, struggling to determine how to increase its appeal with limited resources. Pian believes students don't appreciate the physical advantages of the House. Not being so close to the Square makes things peaceful, she says. And the physical structure allows small units to form and still remain part of a whole. "Students are too quick to notice the advantages of the River Houses--there are many things peculiar to South House that are not being made full use of, such as the little rooms in the attic and basements that could be fixed up and used." But despite this rosy picture of the architecture--Pian also envisions the Quad as a sort of private garden, if freed from the traffic that now pours through it--there is a security problem. With six separate entrances to the buildings, the best precaution would be a manned bell-desk at each entrance, she says. But there are no funds and therefore no bell desks.

Pian's specialty is Chinese music--she has written articles on such subjects as "The Function of Rhythm in the Peking Opera," and "Rewriting an act of the Yuan Drama"--and she says her main concern with her mastership is that it detracts from her working time. Nevertheless, she thinks it would be ideal if every faculty member had some experience around students, "in order to get to know them as human beings."

The Pians, who have one daughter, often travel to the Far East. They returned to the People's Republic for a month in 1975, where they visited more than 60 relatives who remain there. But while Pian says she would love to return to her homeland over and over, for now her loyalties are with South House, where she lives now as a dream fulfilled.

Winthrop House

William and Virginia Hutchison

In 1975, William R. Hutchison, Warren Professor of Religion in America and master of Winthrop House, made headlines by writing a letter he sent to newly appointed resident tutors informing them that the University forbade tutors cohabitating.

The day after the story appeared, Hutchison wrote a letter to The Crimson clarifying his personal views. He wrote, "I think students, to say nothing of tutors, should be much freer to run their own lives and establishments than they can be in the houses as presently constituted."

Since then, many students have considered Hutchison conservative, even though he professes a liberal social philosophy. HIs wife Virginia, co-master of Winthrop House, called the episode the "growing pains" of the mastership.

This year will mark the third year of the Hutchisons' tenure in Winthrop House, and since that first year, the growing hasn't been as painful. Last semester, the Hutchisons were on leave in Berlin where Master Hutchison did research in comparative history.

Hutchison, the tallest House master at 6 ft. 5 in., wants to concentrate on the educational aspects of the house this year. After reorganizing much of the House's administration, Hutchison wants to tackle House seminars.

"During my first two years we put a lot of time into the reorganizing of tutorials and the administrative structure of the house," Hutchison said. Hutchison added that the physical development of the House was lacking, and new seminar rooms, music rooms and art rooms had to be built.

With Winthrop's physical and administrative problems solved Hutchisons's next project will be related to the House seminars, which he claims should either be strengthened or abandoned. "I want to get our own senior faculty involved in the House," Hutchison said. But Hutchison says that because of the positions they hold, senior faculty have little extra time to teach House courses. Hutchison wants to find ways to give affiliates of Winthrop House extra blocks of time so that they can teach at Winthrop House.

Hutchison views his job as master as a very complicated one. "It's a multiple role--academic dean, leader of a group of faculty within the House, and personnel officer. Essentially it's a coordinating function. I'm an administrator of an educational and living unit," he explained.

And over the past years, Hutchison has seen changes in the master's functions. Hutchison claims that when the position of master was conceived masters were supposed to teach students manners. But he's wary about further changes in the role of Houses in the University. "If the Houses are to become mainly dormitory or social units then most people now masters wouldn't be interested," Hutchison said.

The master's functions have also become more complex because of the social advances of the past decades. "Co-education has made staffing more complex, and changes relative to student participation in decisions, such as tutor selection have added to that," Hutchison said. "It's great but it makes things more complex," he added.

Co-mastership is another innovation that has resulted from social changes. "Co-mastership is an excellent idea. It means that the spouse has an official position to go with the amount of work she does," Hutchison explained. But Hutchison distinguishes between the master and the co-master. "If, as the University claims, the House is an educational unit, certain things follow. The idea of placing educational authority in the person who is a member of the Harvard faculty is quite important," Hutchison said. "The rule that the master has final authority should be kept and strengthened," he added.

The 46-year old master was born in San Francisco and went to Hamilton College in upstate New York. After graduation, he spent two years at Oxford as a Fulbright scholar. In 1956 he earned his Ph.D. in history from Yale, and since 1968 he has been Warren Professor of the History of Religion. This year Hutchison will teach one undergraduate course, Religion 148, "Religion and American Culture since 1800."

"The House system is rather paternalistic," Hutchison says. "I'm not so sure that students need all that supervision or presence of supervisory figures in their entries," he said, adding "I would prefer to see students running their own lives in the Houses to a greater extent. Our ideas about tutors are colored by this bias."

While Hutchison wants to see a change in the function of tutors, he views the system of senior tutors as very sound. "The decentralization of Harvard College that is involved is good," Hutchison said. "But I would like to see senior tutors have somewhat less disciplinary responsibilities. The senior tutor has a lot of disciplinary functions I wish he didn't have. Students are basically grownups," he added.

Hutchison claims that being a master has had a positive affect on his family life. Although his family is a lot busier now than when they lived in Lexington, there are other advantages. His children, two of whom live at home and two of whom go to college, enjoy mixing with the students. "I'm at home more now and the contact within the family is closer. And my wife and I are really doing something professionally together," Hutchison said.

These profiles were written by Marilyn Booth, Gay Seidman, Steve Levine, Marc Sadowsky, Nicole Seligman and Richard Weisman.