Jordan Residents Denied Lottery Boost

Residents of Pforzheimer House defeated a House-wide referendum last night that would have given special consideration in this year’s housing lottery to residents of the dilapidated Jordan overflow dorms.

The proposal to give Pforzheimer residents a one-point advantage in their housing lottery number for each semester they had to live in Jordan this year was defeated decisively, according to Brent S. Tworetzky ’03, treasurer of the Pforzheimer House Committee, who conducted a preliminary vote count shortly before voting closed last night.

Several Jordan residents said they devised the plan as the lottery approached and they looked at the condition of their dorm, which the College will gut and refurbish this summer.

“We’ve had flooding...we’ve had steam explosions,” said Joshua D. Savage ’03, one of the authors. “A lot of the kids in Jordan don’t like their situation and when you add to that being physically removed from the House it makes it hard to knit with the House community.”

“We’ve all lived in pretty poor conditions and we just want to see evidence that the House cares about that,” he said.

Rebeccah G. Watson ’04, another author of the proposal, said she felt isolated living in Jordan.

“It’s one of those experiences where you go into the House and no one know you and you say, ‘I’m in Jordan,’ and they go, ‘Oh,’” she said. “I feel like I’ve gotten to know people just by doing this.”

Watson said she does not think moving Jordan residents’ lottery numbers up by one point per semester is too drastic a change. She cited a policy in Quincy House that gives residents of Old Quincy lottery preference over residents of New Quincy.

This year Currier House, which overflows into one Jordan entryway, is giving rising juniors who lived in Jordan preference over other juniors in the lottery.

But other Pforzheimer residents said the proposal amounted to changing the rules of the lottery after the fact.

“One point seems kind of trivial but it really can make a big difference in room selection,” said Damien A. Williamson ’04, one of the most vocal opponents of the proposal. “The essence of the lottery is everyone has an equal chance of getting a low lottery number and everyone can get bad housing.”

Williamson, who is also a Crimson editor, said that while his blocking group got a suite in the lottery last year, the blocking group just below them did not. In Pforzheimer, each member of a blocking group picks a lottery number and then the group’s numbers are averaged. In Williamson’s case, his blocking group had just a one-eighth point advantage over the next group.

Yesterday evening, before the results were tabulated, D.A. Miishe Addy ’03, secretary of the Pforzheimer House Committee, said she did not expect the proposal to pass because residents would vote according their location—and more students live in Pforzheimer proper than in Jordan.

The proposal proceeded to a House referendum after it failed to pass a HoCo vote two weeks ago by a eight-to-five margin, with four members abstaining.

“It was a really passionate discussion,” Addy said of the HoCo meeting. “I felt it was dividing friendships. It was typical Harvard people disagreeing in personal issues and with all the fervor as if your life depended on it.”

Addy said the committee raised other possibilities for compensating Jordan residents, such as a pizza party and t-shirts—or helping to tear apart Jordan this summer.

“I feel like the people who are in the midst of living in Jordan would have a hard time accepting t-shirts,” Addy said. “Maybe they could take part in tearing it down with sledge hammers. It would help in their catharsis.”

But Jordan resident John F. Brennan ’02 said he thinks only an edge in the lottery formula can compensate for the living conditions this year.

Brennan said he has had to deal with everything from water flooding out of his bathroom drain to random power outages to missing toilet seats.

“The major convincing point is how everyone pays the exact same cost for living and some people are getting the Days Inn and some people are getting the Hilton,” Brennan said. “It’s a rip-off for my parents.”

—Staff writer Anne K. Kofol can be reached at kofol@fas.harvard.edu.