We Must Improve This House

Houses are rather cult-like organizations that command a startling amount of loyalty and fervor among their residents—especially in regard to House Masters. Masters occupy a rather pharaoh-like man-god niche in the undergraduate psyche. It could just be all the free pastry, but it seems that every student in the House system would argue that their Master is the best, the most “chill,” the most interesting—all in an unsettling “black Nikes waiting for the comet” kind of way (at least, when talking to anyone who lives in Eliot).

Such philosopher-king/queen stature should preclude the necessity for any kind of expansive evaluation system, one would think. Yet Monday night, the Undergraduate Council (UC) voted up an initiative supporting the concurrent evaluation of Allston Burr Senior Tutors and House Masters by all upperclass students alongside the tutor evaluations that the Houses compile each year.

As much as we all love our Masters, we still think this is an excellent idea. Certainly more student feedback to the administration on any level is productive and conducive to progressive response that could improve student life and the “Harvard experience.”As Associate Dean of Harvard College Thomas A. Dingman ’67 told The Crimson, “I think that waiting until the end of the year does mean now that we miss some opportunities because sophomores participate in things differently than do juniors and do seniors. Having some feedback from these different classes would be a very useful add-on.”

We couldn’t agree more. Few would doubt the fact that outgoing seniors—who are currently the only students who have the opportunity to evaluate Masters and Senior Tutors—have very different concerns about House life and advising. A formal mechanism for absorbing feedback from sophomores and juniors about their unique issues would enable House Masters and Tutors to be more responsive to all students’ needs—which is, after all, why they’re here.

All that said, it’s clear that the survey should be heavily centered on the qualitative. A meaningless popularity contest—awarding Masters an averaged CUE Guide-style zero to five point rating on “friendliness” and “approachability”—would be useless to the student body, and likely useless to Masters and Senior Tutors themselves. Likewise, there is no sense in making the evaluation results public and thus placing the Masters under unproductive and arbitrary pressure for popularity. The survey should be private and internal, and should provide students an opportunity to rate their House administrators and also air their concerns, offer suggestions, say what works and what doesn’t, and reflect on various facets of House happenings, so that each year adjustments can be made and programs evaluated according to real student responses from all stages of their Harvard careers.

It’s nice to see the UC taking such a proactive stance, channeling of student feelings and concerns to the ever more receptive Harvard administration. With the UC fully behind the initiative and the Office of the Dean appearing receptive, the Masters and Senior Tutors themselves need to weigh in. With nothing to lose and plenty of information to gain, we hope the House administrators take the lead in developing this valuable tool for improving House life.