Dean Stands by Housing Plan

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 has denied the informal request of an Undergraduate Council executive to reassess the College's new randomization policy in three years, when all undergraduates will have been assigned to their houses randomly.

The council executive, who asked not to be named until a formal statement was released, said Lewis responded negatively when he was informally approached about promising a comparative analysis of housing before and after randomization.

"He did say he won't guarantee that he'll do a review," the executive said.

"I don't know that I formally got the request," Lewis said in an interview with The Crimson last week. "Before I respond to it, I'd like to know what the request is."

It is unclear whether a formal request to Lewis will be made by the council, as no such proposal is on the council's agenda for this week.

"It seemed like a relatively minor request," the executive said. "We hope Lewis will reconsider."

Lewis has come out strongly in support of randomization, although the decision was made under the tenure of his predecessor, L. Fred Jewett '57.

The council executive said the request is one of the steps student representatives on the council have taken to oppose the "detrimental blows of randomization."

The proposed review would examine whether or not inequalities of race and gender in the undergraduate houses had evened out with the new policy.

A report on the Structure of Harvard College co-authored by Lewis strongly endorsed randomization as a way to stop a trend toward increasingly non-diverse houses.

The same report recommended the retention of the computer controls that ensured a fairly even ratio of males to females in the houses.

But under the randomization policy, computer controls which once ensured close to a 50:50 ratio of males to females in each house, have been removed. There will not be any controls added for race or other factors, Lewis said in last week's interview.

The lack of enforced ratios has led some to express doubt that diversity will improve under the new policy.

"Maybe what we are doing is trusting the students to create blocking groups that are mixed," Steven Mitchell, co-master of Eliot House said, last week.

"Over the years, the gender ratio has been important," he added

The same report recommended the retention of the computer controls that ensured a fairly even ratio of males to females in the houses.

But under the randomization policy, computer controls which once ensured close to a 50:50 ratio of males to females in each house, have been removed. There will not be any controls added for race or other factors, Lewis said in last week's interview.

The lack of enforced ratios has led some to express doubt that diversity will improve under the new policy.

"Maybe what we are doing is trusting the students to create blocking groups that are mixed," Steven Mitchell, co-master of Eliot House said, last week.

"Over the years, the gender ratio has been important," he added