Word: hellers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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First of all, it is not true that the tutors are useless. My husband does many worth-while and valuable things as senior tutor, although he has never sat down with Mr. Heller and listed them for him. While I have neither the space nor the inclination to list all of the valuable services which our staff of resident tutors provides to the students, I will say that in the last 48 hours I know that one tutor counseled a student about her thesis at 3 am, another drove a student to the hospital on short notice and waited there...
...Heller states that a graduate student living in Somerville might easily fulfill the role of a resident tutor at a much lower cost. I doubt, first, that one could find many graduate students who would be willing to be on 24-hour call to keep Mr. Heller's neighbors quiet when he needs to study or sleep, counsel him when he has an academic or personal problem, arbitrate conflicts with his roommates, make sure he is all right when he becomes seriously ill, let him into his room when he is locked out, write recommendations for him, advise him about...
...Heller is also wrong in stating that the tutors are crowding the students. There are two entries in Winthrop House which house more than one tutor. One of the entries is especially large and has traditionally had two tutors living in it. The other has two tutors this year through an administrative fluke, and will not have two tutors next years...
...only assume that the college administrators did an economic analysis of the kind Mr. Heller so appreciates and decided that it is more beneficial to hire a senior tutor on the basis of merit than on the basis of his marital and parental status. In addition, it should be noted that the other two families with children in the house pay substantial rent for the privilege of living here...
With regard to the presence of children in the house, there is one final "economic" argument which Mr. Heller fails to acknowledge, which is that the children do make a positive contribution here. Although Mr. Heller may find it incomprehensible, some people actually like children for their own sake, and consider it desirable simply to have some around. There are such students in Winthrop House and they have befriended my children...