Nothing in Common

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 says they are ailing. House masters acknowledge a problem in their midst.

But despite a consensus that House Senior Common Rooms (SCR) are no longer living up to their original mission, little is being done to salvage the institution and its role in House community.

Indeed, 70 years after the founding of the House system, the program originally intended to bring faculty into student residences has fallen prey to the rapidly ballooning commitments of modern life.

"The SCRs in many Houses are not healthy institutions," Lewis acknowledges.

Some Houses--such as Adams and Lowell--have taken steps to revitalize their SCRs by retaining only their most active members. Most others have implemented only the most minor of changes.

And although Lewis and some masters claim that increasing faculty-student interaction in the House is a top priority, there is significantly less agreement about how to fix the problem.

Educational Communities

Educational Communities

Modeled after the Oxford system, Harvard's residential College plan is intended to provide a community that is "primarily for the educational benefit of undergraduate," according to a 1994 report on the College's structure.

Through SCRs, Faculty and staff members are supposed to contribute to residential life by interacting with the undergraduates in the Houses. In addition, SCRs provide opportunities for faculty of various disciplines to interact with each other.

The overall theory, some say, is to create a "family," where older faculty and younger students live--or least eat--together and learn from one another.

Yet the family is finding it increasingly difficult to make it to dinner.

With more faculty members living farther away from campus, in two career families and under more pressure to be active researchers and writers, few have the time and energy to devote themselves fully to House life.

Admittedly, the SCRs are partly successful: they do create an environment in which faculty members meet and learn from each other. And the majority of SCR events--while open to undergraduates--are designed to foster this faculty interaction.

The weekly lunches, seminars and receptions win praise from faculty and House masters--"[ They] certainly fulfill the goals of creating the fellowship," says Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles--but they often do little to contribute to student life.

Students in Kirkland House, for example, have virtually no contact with SCR members, although they fill out forms at the beginning of sophomore year that ask them whether they are interested in being paired with an SCR member.

Several Kirkland students--all of whom told the House they would enjoy faculty interaction--say they have never met a member of the SCR other than the masters and the tutors who live in the House.

"It's a terrible waste of what could be a wonderful resource," says one Kirkland House sophomore who asked not to be identified. "I bet some Senior Common Room people are pretty interesting, but I wouldn't know.

"And even in Houses such as Lowell, where SCR members do play a more active role in House life, packed student schedules often limit the amount of interaction that can occur.

The Challenges of Modern Times

The Challenges of Modern Times

Although SCRs were never perfect, they used to work better.

When Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell, Class of 1877, created SCRs in the 1920s, most professors lived in Cambridge and had wives who stayed home and took care of the kids.

But Cambridge's rising cost of living and relatively poor school system have forced more and more faculty members to gravitate to outlying areas, such as Arlington and Newton.

"In the 1950's, a high percentage of faculty lived within the map on the back of the phone book," Lewis says. "It's very hard to get faculty to stay or come back in the evenings for SCR dinners and the like.

"What's more, though students are too shy to approach faculty members they don't know, many SCR members often feel the same way, says Thomas A. Dingman '67, associate dean of the College for human resources and the House system.

"It's a little intimidating to go down to a House dining hall and see 300 students," he says. "They think They want me to join their conversation?'"

Do We Need This Relationship?

Do We Need This Relationship?

Although calls to reform SCRs have not fallen on deaf ears in the council of masters and in the administration, many differ on the best method to do it.

Quincy House Master Michael Shinagel says that a strong connection between faculty and students will keep the Houses from becoming mere high rise dorms.

Still, some masters say that little can be done to fix the problem House-by-House.

"Some of it is kind of beyond the scope of what individual Houses or undergraduates can do," says Kirkland House Master Donald H. Pfister. "It's something that the dean might think about.

"Lewis, on the other hand, says he believes it is up to the masters to improve the SCRs.

And Former Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 says that it is impossible for the deano have any substantial effect on the SCR's relationship to the House.

"Ideally we hope the SCR will be involved and active in the House," he says. "It has to be worked on within the House, it's not something the dean [of the College] can have a great impact on.

"New Adams House Co-Masters Judith S. and John G. "Sean" Palfrey have sought to fill their SCR with active members and asked inactive ones to step down.

"We have a variety of things we'd like to do," Judith Palfrey '67 says. "We want to ask more active SCR [members] to take on sophomore advising." Lowell House, however, has been the most successful in clarifying the role of the SCR in House over the last two years, in part because Co-Masters Diana L. Eck and Dorothy A. Austin have made it their priority.

"We make a special effort to have every one of our students hooked up with one member of the SCR, usually someone who shares some of the same interests," Eck says. In addition, Eck says, they have removed inactive SCR members and stressed the importance of members' eating in the House on a regular basis.

"It's the most important non-class time that students have to relate to faculty members," she says. "[Professor of Mathematics] Noam D. Elkies is here for meals twice a day.

"Lowell House residents say having a more active SCR benefits both students and faculty.

"We have an annual [junior common room] vs. SCR trivia tournament, pool/foosball/Ping-Pong tournament and tug-o-war tournament," says Lowell House Committee Co-Chair Kyle D. Hawkins '02, who is also a Crimson editor. "I know that a lot of people in the JCR are friends with SCR members.

"For his part, Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth '71 says an improved relationship will come with hard work.

"All of the masters are really trying, but they have to be creative," he says.