Don't Sound The Alarm

A MONTH can seem like a long time--particularly a month punctuated by sudden awakenings, multiple predawn and post witching-hour evictions, and cold air creeping up under the nightshirt. A month in which more than 80-fire alarms go off is far too long, and so it was heartening to hear last week that the College had decided to do something about its unmanageably sensitive machinery.

What was strange, and a bit less heartening, was the solution Associate Dean for Housing Thomas L. Dingman '57 and some other officials came up with. Nothing that both students and the Cambridge fire department had become jaded and unresponsive to fire alarms--perhaps because the College had admitted that dust, lint and atmosphere fluctuation could trigger them--College officials moved quickly to reawaken students' sensitivity to possible fires. So it was that another series of noise-inspired evictions marked early mornings last week--not only in the afflicted Lowell, Dunster, Adams and parts of Quincy, but in all the Houses and the Yard, Fire drills, in fact.

Officials now promise they will consider replacing the most obstreperous of the smoke alarms, which were installed over-hastily last fall in response to new safety regulations. This, at least, gives harried House dwellers something to look forward to. But the wait will seem longer than ever if Harvard doesn't apply some common sense. In this case, curing the symptoms might just cure the disease.