Masters, Students Feel Pinch of Full Houses

In the earliest days of Lowell House, then Master Julian Lowell Coolidge faced a predicament that many of his modern-day Master counterparts say they can scarcely imagine--a vacancy problem.

The obstacle then was so great that in order to fill the newly constructed House--built for no more than 220--Coolidge was forced to open the House's doors to students who were not undergraduates at the College but could afford the rooming fees.

More than 60 years later, Harvard receives applications in excess of 16,000 each year and Lowell--now the third largest House on campus--houses 433 students. But despite the College's best efforts to maintain a stable undergraduate population of about 6,400, masters and residents say the Houses feel more crowded than ever.

And to some extent, they are.

Never before have so many House residents lived "outside" of their actual Houses, in places like DeWolfe, Claverly Hall, or the Jordan Co-ops. Originally used for other purposes, these overflow buildings are now crucial, masters say, to helping alleviate severe space concerns within the Houses.

With blueprints for a 13th House unlikely to materialize anytime soon, the College says masters and residents will simply have to make do with crowded dining halls, a lack of common spaces, and, in every suite, an extra roommate or two.

Cramped Quarters

A larger-than-expected enrollment in Currier House this fall chipped away at the Quad's reputation as the land of spacious singles, causing "painful, crowded situations" says Master William A. Graham.

In addition to housing a handful of Currier residents in one of the former Jordan Co-op buildings on Walker Street, the House also "crowded" a number of single rooms with two people. Although he says Currier annually is assigned more students than it can technically house, Graham says this was the first time in his eight years as master that Currier residents were forced to live in Jordan.

"I don't think anyone would doubt we're overcrowded," he says. "Most of us feel it is a fairly serious issue in terms of quality of life."

Quarters are equally cramped in Cabot House, where Master James Ware says an administrative error in the formu- FULL HOUSEMasters struggle to maintain quality of Houselife in an era of space constraints.la for assigning students to Cabot over the pasttwo years resulted in the House being as much as25 students over its official cap of 360 students.As a result, Cabot has also had to rely on theJordan overflow facilities, using space notoccupied by Currier residents for a handful ofdisplaced students.

In the case of John Winthrop House, Master PaulD. Hanson says the problem has manifested itselfnot just in unusually tight living quarters butalso in a dearth of common areas and eating space.

The dining hall is often so filled up that somepeople have to sit on the floor, Hanson says.

In Lowell House, Kristin M. Branson '00 wasforced to keep her desk in the fireplace and couldonly close her bedroom door after moving her chairon top of a bed in her two-room suite. The tightquarters were at least one reason that herroommate moved off-campus earlier this year.

"It's a good size single, but for a double, it[was] small and cramped," Branson says.

A Problem of Perception

The issue of overcrowding was important enoughto merit a guest appearance by Dean of the FacultyJeremy R. Knowles at the monthly Council ofMasters meeting that took place March 10. But theunited front the Masters presented was still notenough to convince Knowles as to the source of theovercrowding issue.

"I am concerned about crowding though I do notnecessarily understand how it has become worsebecause since I have become dean, Harvard Collegenumbers have remained steady," Knowles said.

While Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68says the College population is up slightly thisyear, he adds that the numbers are still in-linewith historical figures. A decision made severalyears ago to increase the size of the first-yearclass, according to Dean of Freshmen ElizabethStudley Nathans, was counterbalanced by anagreement to decrease the number of transferstudents the College admits.

Lewis says the Houses may seem more crowdedlargely because students expect them to be lesscrowded.

Lewis, who lived in Quincy House as anundergraduate, says it is a recent incarnationthat Houses have all but assured upper-classstudents that they will have uncrowded livingarrangements--a single bedroom for every senior, acommon room large enough for all roommates tocomfortably share, at least one private bathroomper suite.

Individual House policies that reinforce thesenotions, he says, only serve to aggravateovercrowding as students entering the Houses areoften assigned especially tight quarters to makeup for the spacious senior accommodations.

"It never used to be an assumption that everysenior was to have a private bedroom," Lewis says."Some of those internal policies may affect thefeeling of crowding."

Few masters or students dispute the notion thatHarvard Houses--even when crowded--provide a levelof student housing that is superior to that atmost other universities.

"We like the students to live well," Wareacknowledges.

"If there's any other college in the U.S. thatprovides housing like Harvard students get--as arule--I'd like to see it," he adds. "The higheryour expectations, the harder it will be to meetthem."

Masters say the widely varying architectureamong the Houses makes it difficult to gauge thetrue degree that the Houses can be consideredovercrowded. With structures that date back to1901 and many that are significantly more modern,the House system has traditionally grappled withplans to address any type of housing problem on anacross-the-board basis.

Largely composed of single rooms, Currier, forexample, has more difficulty accommodating evenperiodic increases in its number of residentswithout severely affecting student comfort than aHouse primarily composed of suites might.

"It makes a great deal of difference to havepeople doubled up in single rooms in a HarvardHouse, Graham says. "When you have some peoplecrowded and some people not, I think that's wherethe problem is."

Pforzheimer House Master James J. McCarthyagrees.

"The students who are unhappiest every yearwith their housing are those who are in housingthat is substandard to the rest of the House,"McCarthy says.

Eliot House resident Michael J. Epstein '00recalls the trauma of being part of a three-personrooming group assigned to a tiny two-room suitehis sophomore year. The 11-by-14-foot common roomand 7-by-14-foot bedroom meant little privacy foranyone.

"I felt like I was going to go crazy," Epsteinsays. "I had a terrible time finding a quiet placeto work or to study."

Epstein, who now has more comfortableaccommodations as a junior and expects even betteras senior, even created a page on his personal Website comparing the floor plans of his current roomand his former home.

The Bare Necessities

As the Houses search for extra space forstudent accommodations, square footage that hastraditionally been used to house visiting scholarsand junior Faculty--not to mention space that oncewas used for Faculty offices--is increasinglybecoming the target of plans for expansion.

And as masters struggle to find space foroffices and classrooms in their Houses, it becomesmore and more difficult for the College'sresidential communities to fulfill their missionas academic communities as well.

"There are real trade-offs here," Ware says.

He says the space that might be used to bringthree or four Faculty offices into the House wouldtake up square footage that he says couldaccommodate many times that number of students.

According to Graham, Currier still offers anumber of classes in the House--including thefirst-year seminar that Graham teaches--but hasstill seen teaching and office space disappear.

"Serious numbers of [teaching fellow] andFaculty offices have disappeared from the Houseslargely under the press to open up rooms," Grahamsays.

And without the space to allow for a Facultypresence in the House, it is all the moredifficult to get professors involved in advisingresidents.

"Our students, as a result, are being deprivedof a wonderful enhancement of what the Faculty arebringing into the House," Hanson says.

The Impossible Dream

Perhaps the most mentioned solution, althoughalso the most unlikely to happen, is a proposal tobuild a 13th House, which some masters estimatewould cost about $200 million.

At a meeting of the City Council several weeksago, Associate Dean of Human Resources and theHouse System Thomas A. Dingman '67 made it clearthat Harvard has no plans to build a new House inthe near future. But Graham says he think thesolution will ultimately come down to money.

"It's always a possibility if someone is foundwho wants to put their name on it and build it,"he says.

Still, a number of masters say that were theCollege to build a new House, it would onlymotivate the College to admit a greater number ofstudents. Eliot House Master Stephen A. Mitchellsays he suspects the College would be motivated tobuild an additional House for economic reasonsrather than as a means of addressing quality oflife issues.

Another House simply means more rooms for morestudents.

"It's a bit like the Paris metro," says MatherHouse Co-Master Leigh G. Hafrey '73. "The morecars you add, the more people ride," he quips.

But Hanson, who has been pressing for a seriousstudy of the issue of overcrowding for the lastthree years, says he thinks alumni will be morelikely to donate for structural enhancementswithin the Houses. A capital campaign for theHouses would give him the funding necessary to addtwo wings to Winthrop House, increasing the sizeof both student accommodations and common areas.

"I think that you'd find a real response on thepart of the alumni," he says. "I think you couldraise a lot of money."

Hanson is not the only master with dreams ofexpansion. According to McCarthy, PforzheimerHouse could create space by connecting some of theHouse's buildings.

"You could find ways to add gracefully...tomany of the Houses," McCarthy says.

With relatively little space to expand thewalls of Kirkland House, Master Donald K. Pfistersays he has worked to find places in the Housethat can be turned into usable space.

From developing the basement to "whittling offcorners" here and there, he says they have beenable to gain some square footage. In addition, hestresses the importance of keeping the House "realestate" active, by employing better scheduling ofHouse common rooms and holding seminars in theprivate dining room.

"We've pushed at all of the boundaries andwe've tried to be very efficient," Pfister says.

Lewis says the College has no plans on thetable for a 13th House or an expansion to theHouses in the near future. To deal with whatmasters perceive as an over-crowding problem, hesays will necessitate ingenuity.

As an example, Lewis suggests that perhaps theCollege should look into changing the way housingassignments are made to overflow space likeDeWolfe. Given the superior level of housing thatDeWolfe rooms offer--with everything from cabletelevision to full kitchens--Lewis says it wouldnot be difficult to find people who would activelylike to be assigned there.

"Maybe there's a way to increase the originallevel of happiness by trying to identify apopulation that would actually like that space,"he says.

A Cramped Community

Masters say crowding single rooms reducespersonal privacy, and others say having Houseresidents living in crowded facilities andoverflow buildings detracts from the ideal of theHouse system.

With 40 of Winthrop House's 369 residentsliving in De Wolfe, Hanson says it is the overallHouse community that suffers.

"I think it is very undesirable in terms ofHouse life to have these exilic communities," hesays.

When it had to assign some residents to theJordan overflow facility, Graham says his hope wasnot to force students to live there. Rather, theHouse solicited students and found several whowere willing to live there voluntarily, mitigatingthe issue to some extent.

Pfister says the set-up of having Kirklandresidents living in DeWolfe was less than ideal.

"I don't think any of us are happy with havingour students so far flung," he says.

And although the distance between KirklandHouse and DeWolfe is not excessive--about the samedistance Pfister walks on a daily basis to get hiscar--he says it is more difficult to get studentswho don't live in the House to stay connected.

"In terms of community, it does take a strongerdesire to get motivated," he admits, adding thatthe problem is exacerbated by the fact thatseveral different Houses use DeWolfe as overflowhousing. "Part of the question of DeWolfe is thatyou have all of this divided authority andallegiances."

Still, the solution to the problem ofovercrowding in the Houses is about as clear-cutas the problem itself.

What masters fear most is becoming the heads ofa dorm--much like the 6,000-person dormitorycurrently being built by Boston University--ratherthan heads of a House, in the truest sense of theHarvard word.

"A dorm for 6,000--the notion it conjures up isnot what Harvard housing is supposed to be,"McCarthy says. "It's intended to be differenthere."

Instead, McCarthy says House masters shouldwork together to make the space issue a priorityin the College administration.

"It wouldn't be at all unrealistic to fix thisproblem in five years," he says. "If someonewanted to find a creative solution to thisproblem, they could. But it is obvious that thisis not a priority [for the administration]."

In the meantime, the Pforzheimer House masters,like so many others, say they have to be creativewithin their own Houses as they look for any wayto gain extra space.

"Our energies are turned to doing the best wecan for our students," says Pforzheimer HouseCo-Master M. Suzanne McCarthy.CrimsonLinas M. Alsenas

In the case of John Winthrop House, Master PaulD. Hanson says the problem has manifested itselfnot just in unusually tight living quarters butalso in a dearth of common areas and eating space.

The dining hall is often so filled up that somepeople have to sit on the floor, Hanson says.

In Lowell House, Kristin M. Branson '00 wasforced to keep her desk in the fireplace and couldonly close her bedroom door after moving her chairon top of a bed in her two-room suite. The tightquarters were at least one reason that herroommate moved off-campus earlier this year.

"It's a good size single, but for a double, it[was] small and cramped," Branson says.

A Problem of Perception

The issue of overcrowding was important enoughto merit a guest appearance by Dean of the FacultyJeremy R. Knowles at the monthly Council ofMasters meeting that took place March 10. But theunited front the Masters presented was still notenough to convince Knowles as to the source of theovercrowding issue.

"I am concerned about crowding though I do notnecessarily understand how it has become worsebecause since I have become dean, Harvard Collegenumbers have remained steady," Knowles said.

While Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68says the College population is up slightly thisyear, he adds that the numbers are still in-linewith historical figures. A decision made severalyears ago to increase the size of the first-yearclass, according to Dean of Freshmen ElizabethStudley Nathans, was counterbalanced by anagreement to decrease the number of transferstudents the College admits.

Lewis says the Houses may seem more crowdedlargely because students expect them to be lesscrowded.

Lewis, who lived in Quincy House as anundergraduate, says it is a recent incarnationthat Houses have all but assured upper-classstudents that they will have uncrowded livingarrangements--a single bedroom for every senior, acommon room large enough for all roommates tocomfortably share, at least one private bathroomper suite.

Individual House policies that reinforce thesenotions, he says, only serve to aggravateovercrowding as students entering the Houses areoften assigned especially tight quarters to makeup for the spacious senior accommodations.

"It never used to be an assumption that everysenior was to have a private bedroom," Lewis says."Some of those internal policies may affect thefeeling of crowding."

Few masters or students dispute the notion thatHarvard Houses--even when crowded--provide a levelof student housing that is superior to that atmost other universities.

"We like the students to live well," Wareacknowledges.

"If there's any other college in the U.S. thatprovides housing like Harvard students get--as arule--I'd like to see it," he adds. "The higheryour expectations, the harder it will be to meetthem."

Masters say the widely varying architectureamong the Houses makes it difficult to gauge thetrue degree that the Houses can be consideredovercrowded. With structures that date back to1901 and many that are significantly more modern,the House system has traditionally grappled withplans to address any type of housing problem on anacross-the-board basis.

Largely composed of single rooms, Currier, forexample, has more difficulty accommodating evenperiodic increases in its number of residentswithout severely affecting student comfort than aHouse primarily composed of suites might.

"It makes a great deal of difference to havepeople doubled up in single rooms in a HarvardHouse, Graham says. "When you have some peoplecrowded and some people not, I think that's wherethe problem is."

Pforzheimer House Master James J. McCarthyagrees.

"The students who are unhappiest every yearwith their housing are those who are in housingthat is substandard to the rest of the House,"McCarthy says.

Eliot House resident Michael J. Epstein '00recalls the trauma of being part of a three-personrooming group assigned to a tiny two-room suitehis sophomore year. The 11-by-14-foot common roomand 7-by-14-foot bedroom meant little privacy foranyone.

"I felt like I was going to go crazy," Epsteinsays. "I had a terrible time finding a quiet placeto work or to study."

Epstein, who now has more comfortableaccommodations as a junior and expects even betteras senior, even created a page on his personal Website comparing the floor plans of his current roomand his former home.

The Bare Necessities

As the Houses search for extra space forstudent accommodations, square footage that hastraditionally been used to house visiting scholarsand junior Faculty--not to mention space that oncewas used for Faculty offices--is increasinglybecoming the target of plans for expansion.

And as masters struggle to find space foroffices and classrooms in their Houses, it becomesmore and more difficult for the College'sresidential communities to fulfill their missionas academic communities as well.

"There are real trade-offs here," Ware says.

He says the space that might be used to bringthree or four Faculty offices into the House wouldtake up square footage that he says couldaccommodate many times that number of students.

According to Graham, Currier still offers anumber of classes in the House--including thefirst-year seminar that Graham teaches--but hasstill seen teaching and office space disappear.

"Serious numbers of [teaching fellow] andFaculty offices have disappeared from the Houseslargely under the press to open up rooms," Grahamsays.

And without the space to allow for a Facultypresence in the House, it is all the moredifficult to get professors involved in advisingresidents.

"Our students, as a result, are being deprivedof a wonderful enhancement of what the Faculty arebringing into the House," Hanson says.

The Impossible Dream

Perhaps the most mentioned solution, althoughalso the most unlikely to happen, is a proposal tobuild a 13th House, which some masters estimatewould cost about $200 million.

At a meeting of the City Council several weeksago, Associate Dean of Human Resources and theHouse System Thomas A. Dingman '67 made it clearthat Harvard has no plans to build a new House inthe near future. But Graham says he think thesolution will ultimately come down to money.

"It's always a possibility if someone is foundwho wants to put their name on it and build it,"he says.

Still, a number of masters say that were theCollege to build a new House, it would onlymotivate the College to admit a greater number ofstudents. Eliot House Master Stephen A. Mitchellsays he suspects the College would be motivated tobuild an additional House for economic reasonsrather than as a means of addressing quality oflife issues.

Another House simply means more rooms for morestudents.

"It's a bit like the Paris metro," says MatherHouse Co-Master Leigh G. Hafrey '73. "The morecars you add, the more people ride," he quips.

But Hanson, who has been pressing for a seriousstudy of the issue of overcrowding for the lastthree years, says he thinks alumni will be morelikely to donate for structural enhancementswithin the Houses. A capital campaign for theHouses would give him the funding necessary to addtwo wings to Winthrop House, increasing the sizeof both student accommodations and common areas.

"I think that you'd find a real response on thepart of the alumni," he says. "I think you couldraise a lot of money."

Hanson is not the only master with dreams ofexpansion. According to McCarthy, PforzheimerHouse could create space by connecting some of theHouse's buildings.

"You could find ways to add gracefully...tomany of the Houses," McCarthy says.

With relatively little space to expand thewalls of Kirkland House, Master Donald K. Pfistersays he has worked to find places in the Housethat can be turned into usable space.

From developing the basement to "whittling offcorners" here and there, he says they have beenable to gain some square footage. In addition, hestresses the importance of keeping the House "realestate" active, by employing better scheduling ofHouse common rooms and holding seminars in theprivate dining room.

"We've pushed at all of the boundaries andwe've tried to be very efficient," Pfister says.

Lewis says the College has no plans on thetable for a 13th House or an expansion to theHouses in the near future. To deal with whatmasters perceive as an over-crowding problem, hesays will necessitate ingenuity.

As an example, Lewis suggests that perhaps theCollege should look into changing the way housingassignments are made to overflow space likeDeWolfe. Given the superior level of housing thatDeWolfe rooms offer--with everything from cabletelevision to full kitchens--Lewis says it wouldnot be difficult to find people who would activelylike to be assigned there.

"Maybe there's a way to increase the originallevel of happiness by trying to identify apopulation that would actually like that space,"he says.

A Cramped Community

Masters say crowding single rooms reducespersonal privacy, and others say having Houseresidents living in crowded facilities andoverflow buildings detracts from the ideal of theHouse system.

With 40 of Winthrop House's 369 residentsliving in De Wolfe, Hanson says it is the overallHouse community that suffers.

"I think it is very undesirable in terms ofHouse life to have these exilic communities," hesays.

When it had to assign some residents to theJordan overflow facility, Graham says his hope wasnot to force students to live there. Rather, theHouse solicited students and found several whowere willing to live there voluntarily, mitigatingthe issue to some extent.

Pfister says the set-up of having Kirklandresidents living in DeWolfe was less than ideal.

"I don't think any of us are happy with havingour students so far flung," he says.

And although the distance between KirklandHouse and DeWolfe is not excessive--about the samedistance Pfister walks on a daily basis to get hiscar--he says it is more difficult to get studentswho don't live in the House to stay connected.

"In terms of community, it does take a strongerdesire to get motivated," he admits, adding thatthe problem is exacerbated by the fact thatseveral different Houses use DeWolfe as overflowhousing. "Part of the question of DeWolfe is thatyou have all of this divided authority andallegiances."

Still, the solution to the problem ofovercrowding in the Houses is about as clear-cutas the problem itself.

What masters fear most is becoming the heads ofa dorm--much like the 6,000-person dormitorycurrently being built by Boston University--ratherthan heads of a House, in the truest sense of theHarvard word.

"A dorm for 6,000--the notion it conjures up isnot what Harvard housing is supposed to be,"McCarthy says. "It's intended to be differenthere."

Instead, McCarthy says House masters shouldwork together to make the space issue a priorityin the College administration.

"It wouldn't be at all unrealistic to fix thisproblem in five years," he says. "If someonewanted to find a creative solution to thisproblem, they could. But it is obvious that thisis not a priority [for the administration]."

In the meantime, the Pforzheimer House masters,like so many others, say they have to be creativewithin their own Houses as they look for any wayto gain extra space.

"Our energies are turned to doing the best wecan for our students," says Pforzheimer HouseCo-Master M. Suzanne McCarthy.CrimsonLinas M. Alsenas