Council Evaluates Randomization With Student Poll in Dining Halls

An electronic survey being administered in House dining halls this week will help the Undergraduate Council and the college's Committee on House Life (COHL) assess the effects of randomization on Harvard's fabled House system, council leaders said yesterday.

The council, both under the leadership of current president Noah Z. Seton '00, and former president Beth A. Stewart '00, has championed an evaluation and reconsideration of the College's 1995 decision to randomize student placement into housing.

Council leaders said they were optimistic that results from the survey would encourage administrators to take a new look at the policy.

"We hope the survey will give the administration the sense of what is happening to House life under randomization," said Eric M. Nelson '99, who is one of the council's three delegates to the COHL.

"The hope is that if the student body sends a clear message one way or the other, the administration will take that into account."

Associate Dean for Human Resources and the House System Thomas A. Dingman '67 said survey results would also allow House masters to address any "jarring differences" between Houses.

The survey's 47 questions--which will be divided into two surveys to cut down on the amount of time the survey takes--were developed in a COHL subcommittee that included several House masters and the council representatives. They seek student opinion on a number of issues of House life, including tutors, facilities and other House resources.

According to John Paul Rollert '99, who is chair of the council's student affairs committee and a delegate to the COHL, the subcommittee struggled to select the most appropriate surveying method.

Although the subcommittee thought that a random phone survey might produce more statistically significant data, he said the decision to use the electronic surveying devices in dining halls was seen as a more realistic option.

Rollert said the results would be available to members of COHL when the second half of the survey is completed in three weeks. After that point, however, Dingman said it will be up to the committee to determine how to use and disseminate the information.

"That's something the COHL will have to take up," Dingman said. Rollert said he was hopeful that the COHL would eventually release the data to students.