This Old (Inter-) House

There’s a structural problem in the debate about Harvard’s House system: the people most likely to need the Houses are also the least likely to talk. The legions of the socially awkward at Harvard are, depending on the degree to which they are awkward, less likely to form a good blocking group, thrive in a student group, or excel in sports—all of which require strong interpersonal skills. Institutionalized relationships—like marriage and sports teams—are important precisely because they feel more secure than non-institutionalized ones. This is why we need real House communities: so the students who find it difficult to obtain social security, so to speak, are guaranteed the chance to do so.

Harvard’s House community, as it stands, is rather pitiful. Think of where the Houses stand on the ladder of communal allegiance. At the top lie a hodgepodge of athletic teams, blockmates, social clubs, and tightly-knit student groups. Then come second-tier student groups, after that cultural or religious affiliations, and, only then, the Houses. One is almost embarrassed to introduce a friend by (merely) claiming a shared House. Whereas at Oxford and Cambridge—the universities upon which our system was modelled—students are still identified as residents of certain colleges, at Harvard you are more likely to be identified by your cliquish social club or cutthroat political group. There is little community, little sense of shared space.

The tragedy, of course, is that we live amidst the ruins of a functioning House system. We have mostly nominal House Masters and Senior Common Room members, and a mostly unpublicized—though decent—games system in intramural athletics (IMs). And who can forget the grossly inefficient 13 dining halls that we run precisely because of these Houses in the first place?

But I’m not only bringing bad tidings—and for this you have athletes to thank, of all people.

Clannish athletes are not usually credited with strengthening the university community, but sometimes pigs fly. So effective have their coups d’ état of the Eliot and Lowell House dining halls been that both Houses have been forced to impose restrictions on non-residents during peak hours; a resident may invite one guest during traffic hours. Currently, Quincy is the only desirable River House that is restriction-less (at least for upperclassmen), and that domino too shall soon fall.

Restrictions were made for wholly practical reasons—students want to find a seat in their own dining halls. But they may yield a brilliant and unplanned side effect: restrictions contain within them the first seeds to re-germinate Harvard’s struggling House communities. Imagine if each House imposed resident-only hours for dining halls—the whole weekend, say, or perhaps just Sunday brunch. It would have the following effect:

a) It would send the signal to students that the House community is important—that Lowell residents ought to be with other Lowellians once in a while, and that Winthrop can actually be for Winthropes, and not just a cappella groups.

b) Since communities are partly made by keeping other people out, resident-only hours would give residents a sense that they actually own the space in which they live.

No, I am not naïve enough to think we will suddenly have a real house community and that Matherites will be Matherites before they are squash players or UC reps. But I do see an expansion of dining hall restrictions as a positive and possible first step to take if we are serious about giving everyone—not just the people-people at Harvard—a real chance for community.



Sahil K. Mahtani ’08, a Crimson editorial editor, is a history concentrator in Winthrop House.