Are things already decided the way they stand now?

We make a recommendation to Dean Roseman and Morty. We are “pretty far along in developing the proposal.” It wasn’t invented just yesterday.

I appreciate the 4 years that went into this, but how about students now? The Trustees like this because it sounds like house affiliation.

What we have NOW is more like frats. We’re not proposing a return to the past.


Will this affect admissions to the College?

No. {Dudley then draws a comparison with Yale}. We’re “not trying to imitate” other schools. Here’s some data that we need to improve: a greater percent of students say they decline admission because of Williams social life. A declining percent of graduating seniors say Williams has an excellent social life.


In admissions, if there was no interview, the decision to admit is based solely on a form. Thus all the College has to place these students in entries is a form—and thus all they have to place these students in clusters is a form. I had a horrible roommate, but we looked great on paper.

You could remain in your cluster but not with your horrible roommate. You can always opt out of your cluster.


Would the group you pick in with be able to change from year to year (within the cluster)?

Yes. It’s about more chances to get to know more people.


In trying to get equitable clusters, you have to have geographically separated clusters. How do you get cluster cohesion?

We have to “balance competing considerations.” It’s a trade of freedom for “all these other things” that clusters give us.


Houses had their own characters under house affiliation, and they still do now. Clusters will erase that because entries are affiliated with clusters.

“When the system changes character changes.” Sometimes this is for the better, it may not be a bad thing. Under house affiliation, students expressed a preference for a house, they didn’t make an explicit choice, so choice isn’t why there was character before. This is a residential college, and admissions brings a huge variety of students. Both these things (residence and variety) are integral to the educational experience. Therefore, stratification is opposed to the mission of the College.


Isn’t a dorm with a “cross-section” of the College just a dorm with “statistical diversity?”

Clusters as conceived are big enough for different types of houses—party houses, quiet houses, etc.


You want to fix the social scene by all this but I assume we still have HCs. Are you going to fix the failing HC system?

If an HC is trying really hard and organizing events, and people don’t show up, of course the HC system is going to fail. I don’t believe this sort of thing “comes from the top.” We would devlop mechanisms so that if your HC is slacking, you can provide feedback (not to the HC).


You seem to think that increasing diversity will increase interaction just because of a long-term connection to an artificially diverse community…

At Yale you get assigned to a college randomly. Entries are random, and they work well. This provides a long-term connection, and a community is better if it’s diverse.


If we choose friends by common interest, that GIVES us the long-term connection that you’re looking for us to have. In a smaller cross-section of the College, we’re less able to meet people with common interests.

“Uh…well put.” There are no walls between clusters. This isn’t designed to destroy current affiliations. You can still find common-interest friends, “I love to swim, you love to swim, we’re friends!” And there’s no choice in which entry you belong to, which works well. There’s no choice in which family you belong to. There’s no reason you can’t have both a cluster that was picked for you and common-interest affiliations.

Certain extracurricular connections are strengthened by living together. These groups bridge over other interests and can build more lasting relationships than an artificial cluster could.

“Well put.” Clusters are no more artificial than entries. We don’t want to go back to frats.


How would you select JAs? 8 from each cluster?

Students have always chosen the JAs, and that will continue. The hope is that JAs will “have the inclination” to be in their own cluster.


Are there are other goals than those you mentioned?

No…I’m trying to think of any, but no. I’m not hiding anything.


It seems you’re trying to improve the social scene through clusters but cluster events are not mandated. Won’t the cluster “HCs” have the same problem as HCs now? What’s the motivation for going to cluster events? Entries are great at the beginning of the year, but snacks attendance is down by the end when students find their niches.

“We asked that question long and hard.” In the old days, there was in-house dining; but we don’t have that in the new proposal. Which affiliations matter varies from person to person, but extracurricular groups don’t organize events. Spending time with the people in your cluster (living with them) will make this work. If students find their niche they can opt out of their cluster.


House affiliation before was rigid and “there WERE walls” between houses, but not here; so won’t you have the same problem you have now?

We had to balance tradeoffs.


The Odd Quad is basically what you want: a very diverse group, lots of varied events are held, it’s not exclusive. But we live here because it’s nice to walk across the quad and be with our friends. This wouldn’t exist if cut into sixths.

You must remember two things: The Odd Quad is only 15% of the college, and the bigger picture could be improved. In clusters, people would travel more because these social groups are dispersed. These groups could congregate with similar students within each cluster (six miniature Odd Quads all over campus).


All this discussion of microcosms is great, bit Williams IS basically a “microcosm.” Williams is too small; people really enjoy living with their friends.

We have to think about affiliations. We can’t allow students to re-affiliate over and over again. Nothing limits you from living with a particular group of friends (there’s the escape hatch). No system solves the problem of difficult decisions.

What about students coming back from abroad?

We want students who come back from abroad to come back into an entity.

But what if a bunch of a cluster goes abroad in the fall, so that in the fall lots of rooms are empty but in the spring there’s a housing shortage? If there are discrepancies between the clusters, what would happen to cluster affiliation?

We’re asking for more residential space—maybe students can have Baskin back—and more co-ops. Twice as many students go abroad now as 15 years ago, maybe that means things at Williams aren’t as good as then, maybe it means the opportunities abroad are better, I don’t know. You’re right, this isn’t ideal.


How big is a residential college at Yale?

400 to 550 students.


I have very specific group of friends that would have been much harder to form if it was split 6 ways. With the best housing going to seniors and so on, you’ll have less class mixing…

Yeah.

…so wouldn’t you have to assign a class-year cap for each house or something?

We wouldn’t be very popular if we said seniors had to live in Mission. But we’re not running a popularity contest.

Working for 4 years doesn’t make this idea right.

It’s a good idea in the judgment of the people who worked on it for the longest time. Unpopular ideas can be good ideas.


Students rail against the loss of choice. Choice makes Williams what it is: we have no core program, no required courses, you can change your major until pretty late in the game. But this replaces student choice with administration choice—it’s dissonant with the school’s mission.

You’re saying a pretty small window is defining Williams—12 years. House affiliation had elements that “defined” Williams, and those elements were lost. Choice isn’t the only thing that’s important.


Your goals involve tackling the sophomore slump, ACE, etc…can’t you tackle these goals separately rather than in one fell swoop?

Those elements are deeply related, not separable. The house system involved more unofficial academic advising from upperclassmen to sophomores. There are benefits to class-year interaction. The Trustees are unhappy with Mission Park being an all-sophomore dorm.


My biggest problem with this is that it’s a decision being made high up, and students feel it’s difficult to influence it. Students feel they know what’s best for them rather than the administration: let’s have a poll!

{Dudley talks for a moment on direct versus representative democracy.} Direct democracy isn’t good for complicated issues. There was a survey in 2002-2003, and we talked to students for 4 years. We understand how students think.

Many of us didn’t hear about this idea until this month, and we didn’t elect CUL representatives based on this issue. {Note: CUL reps are appointed by CC, not elected by the student body.} Student opinion seems not to have been accounted for. We CAN have full democracy on the presented idea now that you’ve come up with it.

Unpopular decisions aren’t always wrong. We take student opinions very seriously.

{Prof Dew then took the floor.} There’s nothing coercive about clusters—you can have nothing to do with it if you don’t want to. There’s a lot missing now that we had under fraternities—it was the EXCLUSIVITY of frats that was bad. What’s missing, and what we want to recreate, is “pride of place,” a pride of your house, of your living space. We want to make the current system better in the way that fraternities were better.

{Megan O’Malley ’06 then spoke up.} Your choices are being BROADENED, not limited. People just don’t understand the idea of clusters.

{Back to Prof Dudley.} The Record editorial board has supported this idea generally for some time.


I’m concerned about co-ops. There’s a separate lottery for co-ops right now, and access to the co-ops is restricted to residence of that co-op, so how can they be part of the cluster?

We’ll make sure each cluster has a slice of the co-ops. People in a co-op can always “bolt the door” if they don’t want to participate in the cluster, but they will have spent 3 years affiliated with those students.


We just had a number of changes: Mission renovation, Prospect undergoing renovations, Baxter being torn down. Why not give things a little more time to work the kinks out?

The CUL almost recommended clusters in 2002, and it was put off for that very reason. “We’re back.” The need for improvement hasn’t gone away.


Have you compared the current system, the old system, and other schools’ systems in surveys?

The “data is spotty.” We only have two data points: last year, 13% of graduating seniors said that social life at Williams was very satisfying. In 1999, that figure was 25%. This is from a voluntary survey at colleges, we only have data that gets released. Morty has this data in “some kind of lockbox in his house.”


Two questions: You say moving to clusters could improve campus life without hurting anyone, but some concerns are not addressed. For some students, entries fail; so this move would be more detrimental. Maybe it improves life for some, at their expense… Second, you list your goals and methods, and assert that your methods will accomplish the goals. But there’s no proof that will happen. Lots of changes are still percolating. Despite those changes and not waiting to see their final result, how can you say that anchor housing will solve all these problems?

I can’t promise nobody will be less happy. Any system works for some and doesn’t work for others, we can’t create utopia. There are good reasons to think those students (for whom entries fail) would have the opportunity to make the connections they need. This is the first time residential life has been deliberated thought through since fraternities were abolished. There weren’t any calls for change from house affiliation, just complaints from about 10% of the students. They were just a very vocal 10%.


People are convinced that affiliation by interest is a good thing, so how do you make this “pride of place” happen?

More professional lubrication is required of the process at the outset. We’re going to kick off clusters in a high-profile way. Connections will happen when the bad-mouthers of the anchor system graduate. The competitive idea is an interesting one.

{O’Malley} We’re thinking of maybe having a “cup race” among the six clusters. Each cluster would get a certain amount of points for participating in or hosting different types of activities: IM sports, faculty interaction, parties. The cluster with the most points at the end would win a prize. {Five points for Slytherin. Prof Dudley resumes after this.}


You want to improve social life. There’s no empirical data that this will work or that the current system is broken. The Princeton Review consistently rates Williams in the top ten—often top five—in social life. You have no basis for comparison between now and house affiliation, you have no control data.

You want hard data, but “better than numbers are conversations.” Even if we’re good now, we can still be better.

But there’s a huge sentiment that thinks this will be worse. Are you willing to throw this idea out?

We’re not going to listen to simple thumbs up/thumbs down response, but specific criticisms or opinions. I’m listening. Lots of people are participating in this, providing input. What kind of empirical data? An opinion poll is just putting a number on speculation. Here’s a number: 13% of graduating seniors think social life here is very satisfying.


I’d suggest you look at a more important thing than housing: find a better way to gauge student sentiment about campus life. You’re doing a great job in marketing, but the 13% statistic is misleading because there’s no control to compare it to. You said in the Record that turnout at the house snacks you visited wasn’t high, students forget things.

Any moment an important decision is impending, some students feel “unsurveyed,” but the surveys happen earlier in the process. We had a big survey in 2002-2003 about this. We worked hard on this. Morty is an economist, he’s a “data junkie.” But how many invitations to surveys do students get? Students would get sick of it. Data from a survey is unreliable.

We need some kind of “exit survey”…how was the 13% reached?

I don’t know.


Students choose their housing based on where their classes are, where their job is, etc. What benefit would there be from clusters?

I don’t know…maybe the cluster will have events with enough appeal to attract you? Hopefully the cluster will have options to choose from, so you can be near classes.


Define student-faculty interaction.

I don’t want to define every detail. Students will decide. There will be faculty assigned to clusters, and we might link this to the advising system. There’s also the idea of having a “cluster class” with one of the faculty affiliates teaching. {I think the idea is something like the FRS.}


{This kid is amazing.} I’m going to try to make an analogy… Here’s my issue: I have this thing with reorganizing my room. I keep moving stuff around in the hopes that eventually I’ll find the perfect arrangement so that my room will be clean. But then I realize that to get it to be clean, I need to actually pick the clothes up off the floor! You’ll cut the campus into sixths, but the new system won’t change the fact that I can still go down the hall and meet someone, so geographic proximity makes people come together that way. That’s why the Odd Quad exists. But I’m not going to Wood if I live in Pratt—Williams doesn’t have the infrastructure to implement a system like Yale. I think that “building a hut with pool tables and a drink machine in the middle of the Greylock Quad” would do more to improve interaction. I’m not going to be friends with people just because I’m in their cluster.

“You’re funny!” We’re not trying to make everyone friends with everyone. Let me reminisce a little about houses…I disagree that there was no effect of proximity. Yes, Williams doesn’t have Yale’s architecture, but there’s an advantage: there aren’t sharp sixths—that’d be a mistake to do. Some people would walk from Pratt to Wood, some do now. This isn’t trying to be everything for everyone.


This idea SOUNDS great, like inter-entry events are great. I appreciate your goals, but don’t understand how inter-house during the year will happen. How do you get HCs to actually work?

HCs are already trying, but nobody comes to their events because there’s no house identity. HCs have more success when they combine houses for an event.


Two quick comments: Larger clusters might be better. The current Tyler cluster is geographically disadvantaged. Now, I think you’re really discounting the number of spontaneous events on the suite level. Last year, I was hoping to live with people in Mission but I had a bad pick and lived in Dodd. I still hung out with my friends in Mission, but I missed a LOT simply by not being right there in the hallway. This year I do live with those people, and I missed a spontaneous conga line simply because I went to bed too early. Also, what if students want to pick in with people who are happy in their own cluster? Could there maybe be a system for inviting someone to join your cluster?

We don’t want fraternities to develop. We had to balance large versus small clusters, and six looks like the best number to have.


I’m on the JA advisory board. To what extent are you willing to reconsider the way entries fit in to clusters? The arrival at Williams is daunting already, but in the future freshmen would have their affiliation mapped out for them…

The connection of entries to clusters was driven by the desire to make long-term affiliations. We want to build on the entry affiliation. I’m a former JA, and I don’t think this will be experienced badly. The entry is the most powerful affiliation for freshmen, but they would also have their cluster as a place to go. It’s a way out if you’re stuck.


The thing about suites is that I happened to pick in with 4 people and I have a network of friends with the same general sense of fun. I like the opportunity to pick in around some area with a network. It’s the “entrepreneurial spirit” of social life: like organizing extracurricular groups, you can be a social organizer without any central cluster government. My concern is that if you separate the campus into sixths, this wouldn’t happen.

I’m in favor of all that. Spontaneous stuff at the suite level is good, we’re not taking that away. Suites are powerful things. This is part of the point of residential diversification. I totally agree. You might have met different particular people under clusters, but it can still happen.


I have two questions. One: many of us are opposed to the entire idea of anchor housing, not the particulars of the proposal (where the CUL is looking for input). This seems reminiscent of the Baxter debates, where the decision had already been made high up before students got a chance to go to any forums or presentations. What can students do to get the CUL to give up this idea? Two: I think you’re missing a slide—how do you measure your success? More conversations in a few years? You need a way to gauge whether this succeeded or failed, and if it failed, automatically move back to free agency or something.

I’ll answer your second question first: we don’t want to build in any “automatically”s. We don’t want to tie the hands of future CULs. But the CUL would revise the system if it does fail. “We’re well-meaning.” We’d continue to talk to students, and the system would continue to evolve. We can’t anticipate all the consequences of this proposal. Remember that the free-agent system was an “accident” with no formal proposal going into it, it wasn’t fully thought out. In response to your first question, I think you guys see me as big-headed, that we have this idea and we’re not changing. In some ways this is true, we have been working on this for 4 years! We considered all sorts of possibilities, we can’t predict all the results. We had to balance tradeoffs. I hope I’ve given good reasons for this proposal. I’ve met lots of deeply opposed students who just have the wrong idea about clusters, but they’re still deeply opposed when I inform them. It looks like a reaction to change. We had to consider tradeoffs to reach our goals.


I’m a first-year student and I think this is a radical change, but students’ bonds will be maintained anyways if friendships are good enough. There will be different forms of spontaneity. I say, try it out.

{Dudley calls on another student.}


You keep talking about clusters giving students more options and opportunities, but I fail to see how that will materialize. I see the proposal doing two things: first, it restricts students to five houses in their three upperclass years, often with only one or two desirable places to live for each class year. Since cluster draw will be by seniority, the seniors will live in the row houses, and in all likelihood, classes will stick together enough to maintain the same class distribution we see now—so then you end up with students having only one “option” of house to live in each year, except for senior year, when they have two or maybe three options. That looks like taking away options that students want to have. Second, it restricts the people you can live with. You can pick in with people of your choosing, people you get along with and are friends with—but only in your cluster, which would have one sixth as many of those people. Sure, there’s the escape hatch, but that can only be done once and it doesn’t account for character development, for students wanting to live with new people, new friends. Another limit on options. Various CUL members have said that there’s the “option” of simply not participating in the cluster, of “barring the door,” but no human being would do that, and Noah on the blogs wrote that doing so would be a disservice to the student and to the college—leaving the implication that that’s hardly an option for students to actually take. So where do all these options and opportunities come from?

I meant that you would have more options in the form of variety. More variety in student-faculty interaction, more variety in the party scene. You’d have the opportunity to make things happen. This increase is worth the decrease in freedoms. What I said about “barring the door” was in reference to co-ops…but I don’t see not participating as a disservice. I can’t speak for other CUL members if they say something like that. We hope that people will WANT to participate in the cluster. They probably will participate more as time goes on.

{A CLC present made the following contribution.} HCs say, well, we tried really hard, but nobody likes where we live. Students shouldn’t be stuck in a group all the time, they should get out and meet more diverse people who share uncommon interests. If you like Star Trek and there’s a football player down the hall who likes Star Trek, you might never ask him because, oh, he’s a football player. But if you live near him and know him, you’ll find these things out. And damages occur to buildings, like the Prospect vandalism, but nobody owned up even if they knew who did it. Cluster “pride of place” would override friendship or selfishness and people might say oh, it was this person; or oh, it was me.


{This person asked a critical question about HCs earlier in the evening.} So I’ve thought about things, and I’m basically convinced to give it a shot (apologies to the Odd Quad). This change will depend on the students and we need to be behind it. This system maybe is “not for us right now,” but could work with future classes since it starts with entries. You have to remember there are no walls between clusters. You could meet more people and be with a different group of people each year.

{Dudley again.} Thanks.


I have a hard time seeing cluster affiliation grow, this pride of place grow. I haven’t seen an argument how student behavior now would filter into the future clusters. If I live in one house but the social hub is somewhere else, it might be like the Snack Bar moving from Baxter to Mission, some students don’t go any more. And if cluster events are supposed to be general-interest for the campus, I don’t see how you can maintain variety—they’ll just be like ACE parties again. Also, why can’t you just increase student-faculty interaction in the current system?

The problem there is that we tried, but the faculty are associated with the building, not the students inside. You know, hey, I’m the Gladden faculty affiliate, I’m starting to really like these bricks…

What about a virtual affiliation with faculty, where it doesn’t matter what building you’re in?

It’s simpler to associate faculty with clusters. Back to an earlier point you made, when we considered clusters versus a return to house affiliation, we had to consider the tradeoffs between them. The current generation of students is more sensitive to restrictions on them.

I think the clusters are disadvantaged because of their geographic centralization.

There’s a fair amount of geographic cohesion.


I have a bit of a laundry list… Going back to what the CLC said, I’m offended by the implication that I live with some group but can’t reach out to others. Students need a base of safety before they can interact like that. I was placed in an entry of strangers, and entry activities went towards lowest-common-denominator activities; it was second semester before I discovered a common interest in role-playing with two students in my entry. There’s a stigma, a perception that “how can I bring that up? the entry thinks it’s weird!” Your proposal is in fact coercive, because it forces students out of their “comfort zone.” Under the current system, I picked a room not with people, but for the location because of the interests of the people there. I picked for the reputation of the location. The Odd Quad is a psychological support network; it can support students’ eccentricities across extremely DIVERSE lines, but because of the common interest, it’s a united community. Proximity alone does not lead to familiarity. Anchor housing would cause the loss of these communities of trust, diversity, and safety. It’s damaging to simply not participate in the cluster events if you don’t want to have anything to do with the cluster, students won’t see that as a viable option. There are better odds of making psychological connections if people are brought together by common interest. I’d rather do spontaneous stuff with someone I KNOW, I TRUST, my FRIEND, someone I CHOSE.

You’re right, people aren’t interchangeable. We’re not saying you can’t live with people you have no affinity for. You’re right that this proposal will prevent common-interest groups the size of the Odd Quad from forming; you’d be geographically dispersed, but could still connect. We won’t assign students on a room-by-room basis. We made alterations to retain your ability to live with your closest friends. Clusters could always polarize a little, you could have smaller Odd Quad communities in each cluster.

Say there are 100 people in the Odd Quad community. Each person in that community has a core of associates of about 20-30 people. They can only find that core WITHIN the entire community. Cut into sixths, we’d lose that critical mass. I’m frightened to lose that.


Prospect is essentially a cluster house already because it’s hard to pick into the house in a single large group and different groups (Odd Quad, teams, etc) compete for rooms there. The result is a dorm with NO unity, no common interest. Proximity doesn’t help, and Prospect isn’t a social center. I just happen to sleep there. I need the concentration of people in Currier and Fitch to pick up other friends. There, I find friends and I’m challenged by opposing views all the time.

Your description of Prospect is NOT the description of a cluster. That’s just statistical diversity. We had to ask ourselves, how do we create houses that function as houses? Social activities can happen now, and clusters can help encourage that.

I oppose clusters because it sacrifices current communities in the hope to create others just like them. It’s not a justifiable risk.


{Another student.} Clusters would be like 4-year entries. People stick by class year now and this would foster more interaction.


{Yet another.} I don’t even talk with the people I share a bathroom with because I don’t feel any obligation to. I tried in the beginning of the year, with disastrous results for me. With a proximity like that under clusters, I don’t want to feel forced or obligated to talk to people with no apparent common interest.

Well, there’s a problem if you don’t even talk to the people you share a bathroom with. We want to foster long-term relationships: just like families are together for 16 years, but you don’t choose your family.


{At this point, the clock reached 11:30, and I left, feeling like the same arguments were being rehashed over and over.}