Untangling Our Houses

In my years at Harvard, there has been nothing more disturbingly asinine than the yarn game we were forced to play during prefrosh weekend. Given a ball of garishly colored yarn and an equally garishly colored yarn necklace, we were told to meet as many people as possible, keeping track by tying yarn around the necklace of each new acquaintance.

Ostensibly, the goal was to make a few new friends. But after an hour of eagerly lining up to exchange our name and hometown for technicolor yarn, many of us quickly became nauseous. Friendship, it became clear, was not about introducing yourself to everybody in sight.

We had no yarn during first-year orientation week, but the spirit of the game lived on. At Annenberg and in the Yard, we mindlessly mixed and mingled until finally, perhaps around November, the game finally ended. Not because it was replaced by a particular aversion to new friendships, but because most of us had settled comfortably into one or more meaningful social circles forged over time.

But now it seems that even time can't kill that dreaded game. Thanks to the College's recent decision to halve the maximum size of first-year blocking groups, our upperclass Houses may now become the newest site for mingling for its own sake.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 and the Committee on House Life were concerned, among other things, about the increasing prevalence of large blocking groups and their theoretical implications on House life. Specifically, Lewis and other House Masters worried that these large blocking groups made it easy for students to insulate themselves from the rest of the House. Moreover, many of these large groups seemed "hinged" and "artificially engorged," making them relatively unnecessary in the first place.

The College's concern for preserving House community is an admirable and important one. But capping blocking group size does little more than provide a superficial solution, forgoing a more serious discussion of House community in the post-randomization era.

According to Lewis, an eight-person limit would "ensure that students from one block will get to know other students in the House." Other House Masters have echoed this thought, saying large blocking groups make it hard to "integrate people into the House as a whole."

But is vibrant House life really just about "integration"? Is the College capping blocking groups just so that it can force students to meet one another? It sounds like the yarn game to me.

The reality is that House life is much more complex than simply facilitating meetings between residents. Especially after randomization, extracurriculars, athletics, religion and ethnic ties have eclipsed Houses as sources of close friendships and common meeting grounds. This is especially true by sophomore year, when students have had the chance to find their own niche within a vast and diverse campus.

In this sense, the word "integration"--thrown around by the College and House Masters as emblematic of a healthy House community--is both vague and misleading. To expect students to abandon their self-created social circles for the companionship of several hundred random residents is both silly and simple-minded. Social circles of varying sizes are an inevitable part of House and campus life. Eliminate them in the form of blocking and they will merely recreate themselves after subsequent rounds of the yarn game.

This is not to say we should abandon House community altogether. Rather, we need to abandon the misconception that social circles--large or small--necessarily lead to fragmentation. The challenge, rather, is to bridge these groups within each House by infusing a common respect for one other and a genuine love for the House and its traditions.

Despite a growing influx of large blocking groups, some Houses have managed to preserve their quirky traditions, strong House committee, active email list and successful intramural program. These are among the aspects that make for a healthy House life. And they can thrive regardless of blocking group size.

Labeling large blocking groups as insular or anti-social is easy. What is hard, however, is realizing that at times this insularity may stem from a rooming procedure that often throws entire blocking group into an isolated corner of the House. Or it may result because house-wide events celebrate meaningless mixing rather than substantive communal activity.

Harder still is acknowledging the positive contributions of blocking groups, both large and small. Just as the myriad of student groups on campus give Harvard a particular vibrancy, the spectrum of blocking arrangements makes the House an exciting place to live.

Fiddling with numbers doesn't help at all. It only turns our House system into a muddled, vapid ball of yarn.

Richard S. Lee '01 is a social studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House. His column will appear biweekly.