Houses: From Home to Hotel

May 6, 1998

For many undergraduates the sense of community within the residential house system was once a part of what made the "Harvard experience" so remarkable. In the past, there were well-established communities ready to welcome incoming sophomores--communities which often took advantage of each house's unique physical strengths. Musicians gravitated toward the Steinway pianos at Winthrop and Cabot, while athletes appreciated the close commute to practice from Kirkland. Dancers sought out the studio at Currier, while visual and theater artists made use of the exhibition and performance space at Adams. In addition to the vast physical resources within the houses, students also had the chance to gravitate toward supportive environments. For example, within Harvard's predominantly white, heterosexual majority, there were communities where students from minority groups, including gay and lesbian students, knew they would be welcomed. Whether you came to a house because your older sister once lived there, because it had great pianos, or because it had thriving support networks, the ability to choose yielded great rewards. It was precisely these communities of shared backgrounds and interests that enabled the houses to transform themselves from ordinary dormitories to homes--and that made the students who lived in them truly feel like a family.

There are some within the University who found fault with the previous system. Many observers suggested that students spent too much time during the spring of their first year selecting a house. Others argued that granting students a choice promoted self-segregation and hindered interaction between identifiable groups of students. Their solution to these concerns was randomization.

As both current and former tutors of color we believe the solution, and its assumptions, to be shortsighted. One of the reasons students chose their upperclass house with such care was the desire to find a supportive and nurturing community. These networks are vital, especially in an atmosphere that is competitive, stressful, and at times alienating. We sincerely believe that the process of selecting a "home" was an empowering activity, and for students of color, it was often a necessary activity.

Critics of choice have cited the "Black table" and the "Asian table" as examples of the self-segregation and lack of interaction that existed before randomization. They also point to the relatively large number of students of color who chose to spend their remaining three years at Harvard in the Quad or Quincy. As tutors of color, we are wary of any policy, including randomization, which implies that a community of minority students gathering together is inherently insular, and thus, problematic. Such policies ignore both the diversity that exists within these communities and the considerable interaction that takes place between minority and majority communities.

For example, the concept of the "Black table" that intimidates some white students and infuriates many within University Hall has been unfairly cited as an example of the lack of diversity in student interaction prior to randomization. It is misleading, and offensive, for anyone to assume that diversity can not exist whenever a group of minority students assemble publicly. The "Black table" at any one time may consist of students from wealthy, suburban communities sitting next to those from impoverished inner city neighborhoods. The "Black table" may also be comprised of Africans, Caribbeans and African Americans who have just as much to learn from each other as a group of Chinese Americans, Korean Americans and Japanese Americans at the "Asian table," or a collection of Caucasian students from New York, Utah and California sitting together at the "white table." It is also important to remember that even before randomization, in every house, there were always many tables which consisted of students of many races.

Furthermore, the claim that the relatively large minority populations that used to live in the Quad and Quincy somehow stifled campus-wide student interaction is equally misleading. The administration would be wrong to conclude that these communities lacked diversity and somehow prevented interaction between students on campus. Consider the perspective that before randomization the Quad was not the most segregated, but rather the most integrated place on campus.

But these communities were not diverse simply because of the physical presence of minority students. They were vibrant primarily because various racial communities coexisted and thrived together. And the level of student interaction was sustained because students of color felt comfortable, academically, socially, and personally Although white students usually comprised a majority in these houses, these residential communities served as both a support system and a celebration of culture for minority students. They were, and are, particularly important on a campus that has few resources for students of color to meet collectively, such as a multicultural center.

Weakening these residential communities without offering an alternative is problematic. We remind the University that life for students of color at Harvard can be qualitatively different than it is for their white counterparts. This has been particularly true during the last ten years where certain Harvard professors have questioned the intellectual capacity of minorities and challenged their "right" to be at this institution. The administration must understand that on a campus with astonishingly few tenured professors of color, coupled with a limited number of minority students, the ability to come together physically is very important.

While we support the effort to increase interaction between students of different races, ethnicities, and religions, we believe the price that students of color must pay under the present policy is particularly high. The perception among many is that randomization places the burden of diversification firmly on the shoulders of individual minority students, who are now forcibly dispersed across the campus. By sprinkling a "manageable" number of minority students in each of the twelve houses one does not necessarily ensure increased students interaction. In fact, we contend that randomization has actually stifled student interaction in many houses. Through public and private conversations with students of all races, in houses from Cabot to Eliot, we have been on the receiving end of numerous complaints about randomization. And our own observations as tutors bear witness to their discontent.

In our opinion, randomization has balkanized the houses, producing fragmented communities comprised primarily of large blocking groups that have become a substitute for the spirit that used to exist at the house level. Blocking groups tend to function in isolation from each other, thus undermining a larger sense of house community that might otherwise have formed.

Tutors in several houses have expressed concern about the enormous challenges created by this situation. Some have seen an increase in the level of apathy surrounding house-wide activities, some have noted growing numbers of students requesting to transfer between houses or move off-campus, and many others have simply observed a marked sense of student detachment from house life. Even worse, some tutors have witnessed a significant increase in the number of acts of vandalism, a potential signal of apathy.

In a 1995 statement then-Dean of the College L. Fred Dean Jewett said that randomization was not "set in stone" and could be reexamined in several years. We believe the time has come for the University to reexamine its policy of randomization, and we urge them to consider the input of students, tutors, and alumni/ae. We support the desire to increase student interaction, but the current effort leaves much to be desired. In our opinion, randomization, especially in the absence of alternative mechanisms to provide for the social well-being of underrepresented minorities, is not the right answer. We urge the University to open the dialogue about forming healthy and vibrant communities to encompass new ideas. To this end we welcome the opportunity to meet with students and University administrators to formulate a policy that benefits the entire Harvard community.

Sincerely,

Current Resident Tutor Richard Boulware '93, Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Eliot House   --Adriana Briscoe   Resident Tutor, Pforzheimer House   --D. Crystal Byndloss   Assistant Senior Tutor and former Race Relations Tutor, Cabot House   --Dayle De Lancey '92   Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Pforzheimer House   --Gisele Garraway   Resident Tutor, Cabot House   --Levi A. Garraway '90   Resident Tutor, Cabot House   --Donnella Green   Resident Tutor, Currier House   --Elisabeth Guzman   Assistant Senior Tutor, Pforzheimer House   --Faustina Haynes   Resident Tutor, Currier House   --James B. Lin, Resident Tutor,   Eliot House   --Stephen Marshall   Resident Tutor, Currier House   --Rita Padmore   Resident Tutor, Winthrop House   --Susan E. Phillips '92   Resident Tutor, Cabot House   --Jennifer A. Richeson   Assistant Senior Tutor, Currier House   --Alonford J. Robinson, Jr.   Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Winthrop House   --Lisa Clayton Robinson '92   Assistant Senior Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Winthrop House   --Nicky Sheats   Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Eliot House   --Shirley E. Thompson '92   Resident Tutor, Adams House   --Nana A.Y. Twum-Danso '94   Resident Tutor, Cabot House   --Glenn Wong   Resident Tutor, Eliot House   --Channing Yu '93   Resident Tutor, Lowell House

Past Resident and Race Relations Tutors   --Naomi Andre   Assistant Professor of Music, University of Michigan Former Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Winthrop House   --Lory J. "Tomni" Dance   Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland Former Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Pforzheimer House   --Christina Gomez   Instructor of Sociology and Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies, Dartmouth College Former Resident Tutor, Mather House   --David M. Porter   Assistant Professor of Management, the Anderson School at UCLA Former Resident Tutor and Race Relations Tutor, Mather House

Alumni/ae   Bernard B. Fulton, III '91   Darryl A. Parson '87