Word: jewett
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Acting in blatant defiance of student opinion, Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 last week formally announced his decision to randomize the housing lottery system. The outgoing dean's last significant action has inspired an almost unanimous protest from an undergraduate population as diverse as the Houses which Jewett would create. The consensus of the College community holds that such social engineering is neither desirable, nor effective. Randomization, therefore, should not be instituted...
...president of the Civil Liberties Union at Harvard is opposed to Dean Jewett's decision. So is the Harvard Black Register, which in its first edition has offered the opinion that "Randomization will spread minorities throughout the campus, preventing them from congregating and all but disintegrating their sense of community." This same argument has been presented by representatives of many groups, including those of the artistic community who are concerned with the possible disintegration of collaborative theater productions...
...qualm of Jewett, administrators and House masters with the current arrangement is that it permits a range of self-segregation: athletes comprise an inordinate proportion of Mather and Kirkland; Asians dominate Quincy House; various Quad houses have percentages of Black students above their relative numbers in the College; and the Eliot-Winthrop-Kirkland grouping has come to be known as the "White Triangle...
...within the present structure, each person chooses to live amongst people with whom he or she feels most comfortable. It is a fairly utilitarian compromise that satisfies most students and even the majority of House masters. Jewett's opinion alone is dictating campus policy, at least in this instance. Yet this diversity by flat won't fail for its undesirability alone. The goals of randomization are unfeasible...
...decision he has made is unpopular, Jewett concedes. So his conclusion must therefore derive from some false notion of leadership, a quality incumbent to effective administration but which, in this case, has been applied in a misguided manner. For randomization will have little effect on campus diversity. It will simply splinter groups that otherwise lack common meeting places...