More Than Just Housing

In a 1954 letter to alumni from the Radcliffe College Fund for the Graduate Quadrangle, the Cronkhite Center was to be a place where "graduate students may obtain fitting and convenient living and eating facilities at reasonable cost, and find a focal center for their social life, a meeting place which will afford intellectual stimulation, and the cross-fertilization of ideas that has been the greatest strength of the great universities." The proposed expansion of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in the Cronkhite Graduate Center promises to have a dramatic negative impact on the lives of current and future graduate students, the very people for whom the Cronkhite Graduate Center was built.

The Save Cronkhite Coalition is not, nor has been, interested in the preservation of Cronkhite for self-interested reasons. This plan would affect only about 20 percent of the students already living in this community because the vast majority will be graduating in June. To make this issue simply one of housing misses the depth and richness of the experience for graduates here at Cronkhite.

We sympathize greatly with the Radcliffe Institute's need to expand its physical base and its desire to reaffirm its identity in this transitional period. However, it is not clear to us at this time that Radcliffe has explored all possible alternatives to changing Cronkhite. In a news article in The Crimson, Radcliffe spokesperson Michael A. Armini said 83 Brattle St. (an apartment complex across from Cronkhite) might be changed into office space. This was never mentioned at a March 1 meeting with John O. Horst, the Institute's Director of Facilities, Administrative and Technology Services. Clearly there is uncertainty, even among Radcliffe personnel, as to nature of the Institute's proposals.

Moreover, it was clear at that meeting that neither Horst nor Radcliffe Dean for Administration A. Keene Metzger realized how important this community has been to all the graduates who are living here currently, and have lived here in the past.

If Horst's aloofness toward the graduate residents of Cronkhite (epitomized by his observation that "The priorities of the Institute are higher than housing students, especially students that are not the Institute's") is representative of the Institute's attitude toward graduate students, how can graduates be expected to have their legitimate concerns heard with the impartiality and respect to which they are entitled?

Graduate life can be both isolating and tremendously difficult. Cronkhite is not a dormitory; it is a graduate community, and there is a fundamental difference between the two. Unlike GSAS dorms, Cronkhite provides an atmosphere where graduates students from four different graduate schools and numerous different ethnic origins live together. And yet, these students do not simply "live together." Unlike students in GSAS dorms, we share a common dining hall inside the facility, recreational facilities, and a beautiful courtyard. Moreover, the dining hall staff in particular play an essential role in community life developing close relationships with all the students while working tirelessly to create events that stimulate interaction. Essential to any intellectual experience at any level is the need for curious human beings to be able to reflect upon their own beliefs in light of the opinions of others very different from them.

It is not surprising to us here at Cronkhite, therefore, that Horst is oblivious to this experience. Some members of this coalition have lived in the dorm for over four years, and only those who have had administrative affiliations would be known to Horst. Horst has never taken the time to talk to students and discuss with them their research interests or career goals. It is not surprising then that Horst would callously and ignorantly say that students are merely being "housed" in the Cronkhite Graduate Center.

Let us not fool ourselves. This is not simply about office space: There is an underlying lack of respect for graduate life here in Cronkhite. Informing much, if not all, of Radcliffe's rhetoric is an unfounded and simply mistaken view that this graduate life is not as important as the research fellows who will replace them. It is not as if the research fellows do not already have office space. It is just that Radcliffe wants to have them adjacent to the Yard so they do not spend five minutes walking down Concord Avenue where they are currently housed.

The Radcliffe Institute's proposal disregards the historical and ideological circumstances that occasioned the construction of the Cronkhite Graduate Center, and trespasses upon the express wishes of the very many generous benefactors who recognized the need to help improve the academic, social and economic welfare of graduates.

The Save Cronkhite Coalition seeks not to stifle the growth of Radcliffe. Its purpose is to save at all costs the unique graduate community that Cronkhite stimulates, and the interaction that is so absolutely necessary for intellectual and moral development. We seek, therefore, to work with both the Radcliffe Institute and Harvard to find a solution that does not endanger this extraordinary graduate experience.

Mark Mitrovich is graduate student in the government department. He is a member of the Save Cronkhite Coalition.