Winthrop Creates 7-Man, 5-Room Sophomore Suites

In an effort to eliminate the need for auxilary housing, Winthrop House officials have decided to create several five-room seven-man suites for incoming sophomores, according to a memo delivered to all house residents today.

The memo said that seven five-room suites will be created by combining senior three-room doubles and sophomore two-room doubles into larger apartments.

In addition, seniors will no longer necessarily receive uncrowded suites and mixed senior-junior groups will have a lower status in the housing lottery than senior groups, the memo stated.

The changes were designed to eliminate the need for affiliated housing, said Kim E. Fraser, assistant to the master. "We were not happy with alternative housing and are hoping to avoid it in the future," shesaid."

The new policy, will make it possible forWinthrop to house nearly 370 students, Frasersaid. The house was originally designed for about275 students.

If it becomes necessary to house studentsoutside the environs of Winthrop proper,upperclassmen will be offered the opportunity tomove into alternative housing before sophomoresare assigned to live in it.

Working with 12 Winthrop residents, Fraserdevised the new housing policy, which the mastersapproved over the weekend. The committee wascomprised of representatives of all the groupsthat were affected by this year's overcrowding,Fraser said.

Winthrop students who are living in less thanideal suites this year said they approved thechanges.

"It's much better than having people out inWig," said Sharmani Mahendran '89, who lives inWigglesworth. "As it is, seniors were getting somuch room and the sophomores were so crowded. Nowthe sophomores will have enough room."

Said Kelly M. Dermody '89, who was split upfrom her rooming group by overcrowding, "At leastpeople will get to be together this way. The wholepoint of the housing lottery was to be with yourroommates."

Although the whole house will not vote on thenew policy, Fraser and the ad hoc housingcommittee held a meeting last night to explain thechanges to interested students.

"The policy wouldn't make sense if you acceptedhalf of it and rejected half," said Ian H.Gershengorn '88, chairman of the House Committeeand the special committee.

Most Winthrop residents said they had no strongfeelings about the new policy, but Ted T. Chang'87 predicted, "I think there's going to be a bigstink as soon as those [internal lottery] numbersare distributed.