Word: grouping
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Dean Harry R. Lewis '68, however, offered something resembling a definition of "House community" in his memo to students earlier this year. He wrote that cutting blocking group size will help students to become more familiar with others in their House, and will ensure that each House represents the diversity of students' interests and backgrounds...
Lewis' critics have responded that a genuine love of the House and its traditions, not blocking group size, creates House community. These critics are right, but all traditions are not created equal. It is worth asking which House traditions contribute to its community, and how House traditions inform the debate over the reduction in blocking group size...
...like the Masters' teas in Lowell House and Masters' open houses in Eliot. These occur regularly, and are usually well-attended. Then again, the same can be said for meals in House dining halls, and if these alone were sufficient to foster House community, the recent cut in blocking group size would not have been necessary...
Bumping into different kinds of people during the lonely dining hall dash from the anonymous chaos of the kitchen to the familiar warmth of your blocking group's table doesn't do the trick. The same can be said for shared laundry rooms and entryways. Teas, open houses, and other opportunities for mingling do not themselves sustain community, nor does the shared space of dining halls and laundry rooms. Friction, it seems, does not always lead to friendship...
Primarily through fostering these types of traditions, and not necessarily through tweaking blocking group size, can they save House community...