Full Speed Toward Randomization

Randomization, on a block rather than an individual level, will allow students to continue living with close friends while encountering a more diverse House community. The staff's failure to endorse randomization signifies a misunderstanding of several important concepts.

The first and most important of these is the necessity of students' regular exposure to people of different backgrounds and views. This enrichment through experience constitutes an invaluable part of students' education. The College can better prepare students for the post-college world by giving them the constant opportunity to meet peers from a wide range of back-grounds.

One of the dangers that the staff does not adequately confront is self-segregation. At Cornell, the administration has endorsed self-segregation by dedicating dormitories specifically for Black, Hispanic and, soon, homosexual students. Cornell believes that these conditions will make students more comfortable, but instead it has created a set of isolated and closed communities. How would a Black student feel upon entering the Latino Living Center to visit a Hispanic friend? Probably not very comfortable. Cornell's system discourages the kind of interaction that broadens students' minds.

On the other hand, the housing structure at Yale College sets an admirable example. First-years are placed in diverse groups upon matriculation--as at Harvard--but Yale also gives them random residential college assignments. In addition, they live in first-year halls separated by their residential college associations. Yale's brand of randomization has not precipitated a huge move off-campus (well over 90 percent still live in the colleges), nor has it weakend ethnic organizations.

Yale's system assures diverse colleges every year, while facilitating students' trend of living with at least some of their first-year neighbors for all four years. Moreover, it removes first-years' stress from compiling house choices.

The argument that houses will lose their identifying characteristics because of randomization lacks any logical foundation. Each year, even in largely randomized houses, longstanding traditions such as theatricals, music societies, dances and intramurals attract new classes of interested sophomores. With such large and inevitably diverse house populations, randomization could not possibly threaten firmly-grounded cultural and social institutions.

The College will make the right decision if it switches to a system similar to Yale's. Students can only gain from the experience.