Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner

Last week alone, both Lowell House and Winthrop House instituted new dining restrictions that border on cruel and unusual. With the institution of these new rules, seven of Harvard’s 12 Houses—interestingly enough, the seven most conveniently located ones—now enforce dining restrictions in some capacity, a trend that should trouble Quadlings and River residents alike.

During lunch, dinner (up until seven o’clock), and Sunday brunch, a guest may only eat in Winthrop if accompanied by a resident; in Lowell, the same rule applies, except that dinner restrictions lift 15 minutes earlier and there are no rules on Saturdays.

While we certainly understand that students have the right to eat in their own Houses, we feel that discrimination against those upperclassmen living farther away from Harvard Square outweighs the relatively minor inconvenience of a crowded d-hall. Since many students in Mather, Dunster, and the Quad work and study in the immediate vicinity of the Yard each day, they should be able to eat where they choose. Restrictions pose a problem partly because they create a vicious cycle: As soon as one House restricts, others become overcrowded and begin to follow suit. Soon enough, a Cabot resident must wander through the frozen Cambridge streets facing rejection after rejection. To avoid this, no restrictions whatsoever should complicate where Upperclassmen take their meals, save that they continue to remain out of Annenberg.

Quite frankly, Harvard College is not a plural noun. It is a single community, not the sum total of 12 independent institutions that happen to be located in the same zip code. Enforcing restrictions, including but not limited to the new policies at Lowell and Winthrop, only serves to fracture the College into House units—distinctions randomly assigned in freshman spring that should determine only a student’s address, not the quality of his or her overall Harvard experience. While House pride can add a positive dimension to the undergraduate experience, it should derive from more than just exclusionary dining policies.

With regard to freshman dining restrictions, we support the College’s efforts to cultivate “freshman community” within the larger campus. Still, we believe that freshmen should be allowed to eat outside of Annenberg in those Houses not immediately adjacent to the Yard. While opening Adams or Quincy to freshmen would undeniably encourage many first-year students to abandon the ’Berg, decreasing potential meal-time bonding, they should still be able to eat in some Upperclassmen dining halls in order to participate in student organizations and get a taste of what life will be like after the Yard.

Clearly, the presence of multiple athletic teams in certain River dining halls has contributed to the perceived need for restrictions. Although we recognize the importance of a shared team meal, problems (including overcrowding and insufficient quantities of food) arise when more than one team arrives in the same place at the same time. To address this issue, we encourage teams to each select a “home” d-hall and coordinate with one another to ensure that these do not overlap. If captains continue to ignore the impact their teams’ presence makes on seating and food, we then urge the College to place specific restrictions on where whole teams can eat.

Ultimately, students who live in Houses closer to the Yard enjoy many benefits by virtue of sleeping where they do. They should accept the consequences of their Houses’ convenient locations along with the perks and open their dining hall doors to those less fortunate.