Quad Students Complain About Transfer Woes

Many South House sophomores who had put the Quad Houses as their last choice on their housing lottery forms last spring said yesterday they were disappointed by the efforts of the housing office to move them out of the Quad.

A memo that the office presented to a December meeting of the Committee on Housing and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) stated that there were only twelve vacancies available in the River Houses. Many South House residents said yesterday the figure came as a surprise because they said they were led to believe last spring that they would be able to transfer out of the Quad after the fall semester of this year.

Peter W. Sullivan '79 said yesterday he would like to know how various student groups, including athletes, minorities and musicians, would feel about the plan.

Strengthening the Arts

The task force report, noting that the discussions of arts training the curriculum have not yet been resolved, recommends giving credit for performance "when such activities are part of an analytically and theoretically rigorous course of study."

Williams said the task force took this measure because its members believe that art has a "third class status" in the College. "We would like to see the arts strengthened," he said.

House Direction

The report suggests that the dean's office create posts concerned specifically with House affairs. Such a move would give the masters some help and direction in their chores, he said.

The committee members, whose charge was "to consider the extra-curricular educational responsibility of the College," also listed several previously suggested alternatives to the Housing system, including proposals to place all freshmen in the Yard and in the Quad.

The report did not specifically recommend any plan to be adopted but noted that the current House system is deficient because so many sophomores are outside the House system in dormitories such as Claverly and Canaday.

The college life report follows reports by the concentrations and core curriculum task forces released in November. The concentrations task force favors opening all limited concentrations with the condition that the resources allocated to these concentrations must be increased to provide for additional students.

The core curriculum task force suggests major changes for the General Education program that include the scrapping of the Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences labels and the inclusion of a limited group of courses in each of seven subject areas as the main body of the core curriculum.

Charles P. Whitlock, associate dean of the Faculty for the coordination of the task forces, said he expects two more of the seven task force reports--pedagogical improvement and student body composition--to be released within the month