Resolution: This house would establish cluster housing.

Pro: Prof. Cruz '91 (Philosophy) and David Seligman '05 (All-campus CC Representative and former JA)

Con: Prof. Bailey (Computer Science) and Jonathan Landsman '05 (Class of 2005 CC Representative and former CC Secretary)

WCDU Moderators: Matthew Kugler '05 and Michael Gnozzio '07

Transcription: Amarnath Santhanam '07

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

Kugler: ...the Williams College Debate Union was founded to provide a non-biased, nonpartisan forum for debates on public issues that are important to the Williams community. Tonight's speakers--on the pro side are Professor Cruz, an alum from the class of 1991 and a former JA, and David Seligman, also a former JA [unintelligible due to loud cheering from the audience upon mention of Seligman] and a current CC Rep. On the con side, Professor Barry--Bailey--from Computer Science, and Jonathan Landsman [loud cheering] also on CC and a former secretary. I'd like to thank those who helped organize tonight's debate: Professor Dudley, who helped recruit speakers; Media Services for helping with the mics; and our faculty advisor, James McAllister. Also, distinguished guests [indicates President Schapiro and Dean Roseman]. The format is relatively simple. We begin with introductory speeches from the student speakers. Those are nine minutes. After that, twelve minutes from the faculty, and then four-minute rebuttals by the students. There are three-minute question sessions for a speaker after they finish their first speech, that's the first four speeches, and those are cross-ex style, and you'll see how those work. Now, Mike Gnozzio to explain the proposal.

Gnozzio: As you are probably aware, the debate this evening will be on the CUL's proposal for cluster housing. The proposal will, or is, scheduled to be approved in the spring of this year, and would take effect in the fall of 2006. As has been published in the Record, there would be five clusters, and students would enter into entries that are social affiliates in these various clusters. During Spring Fling weekend, students may opt to either join the cluster with which they are socially affiliated, or may opt to be placed randomly in a different cluster. There is also one opt-out option, to be used in either the sophomore or junior years. That being said, I'd like to call the first speaker for tonight's debate, Mr. David Seligman. [applause]

Seligman: All right, I'm going to see if this mic works. [unintelligible] Yes? All right, good. So, first off, I'm obligated to say that the views that I'm going to express tonight aren't necessarily the views of any of the other groups that I'm a part of on campus, like College Council or the JA Advisory Board. I'd like to thank everyone for coming out today and listening to both sides of this debate. I know it's a really contentious issue; I know that it's a very polarizing issue. At first, when I volunteered to do it I thought that I'd need some kind of security escort when I walked past Currier on the way home. [mild laughter] Since then, I think that I've found out that student opinion is a lot more mixed and complicated than I initially thought it was. Let me tell you a little bit about how I came around to this side of the issue. At first, I think I was just as skeptical as many of you are. Then, I thought a little bit about my experience at Williams and my undergraduate life, and maybe how it could have been improved by something like anchor housing. My sophomore year here stunk, frankly. I know that lots of people have really good sophomore years, but I didn't. The CUL is working hard to improve the quality of life of sophomores on this campus. I picked in, sophomore year, into a suite in Armstrong with some of my friends, and other friends were spread out all across campus. So I think what was really difficult about that transition was that I jumped out of the entry, a place that I really thrived in, into a house--a dorm--and kind of an ugly dorm at that, I guess. I think that things would have been better for me had something like an anchor house or cluster system been in place. Then again, over a year later, when I was a JA, some of my freshmen expressed similar concerns about the transition into sophomore year. There were two groups of them who had more than four friends and were worried about splitting up to enter the housing lottery, and I think that had the anchor house system been in place their lives would have been easier for two reasons. First, simply, the picking groups would be bigger, so they wouldn't have had these problems, and second, I think that they wouldn't have been as intimidated by sophomore year had they felt like they were moving into a dorm that had a sense of belonging, a sense of tradition. So I thought about those experiences, and I decided that I at least should keep an open mind about the CUL proposal. But before I could--before I really decided that this was something that I'd agree to, I had to convince myself that it wasn't really going to make my life worse. So I'm going to walk you through some of those thoughts, some of my initial concerns and how they were assuaged, and then, I'll talk to you a little bit about how I think our lives would be better under the anchor house system. So, my initial consideration was of course, "well, it doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to live wherever I want to," under this proposal. It didn't take me long before I realized that I can't live wherever I want to now. The truth is that I really wanted to live in a co-op this year with my friends, and I wasn't able to because we didn't have a high enough pick number, and so instead we live off-campus, and we have to buy our own toilet paper [laughter] and clean our own bathrooms. And, you know, it worked out, but it wasn't really ideal. So I think it's important that we remember that. It's also important that we remember that we'll be able to pick in with whomever we want to after our freshman year. My guess is that most of us end up living with pretty much the same people from our sophomore through our senior year. I understand, although, that's not always the case, and that oftentimes pick groups fluctuate. But I think that some of the--that most of the time when they fluctuate it's because we meet people who we live around, and we're still going to be able to do that under the cluster system because the people we live around will be part of our cluster. And even if we do meet someone from across campus, and I think that'll happen to lots of us, and we really want to live with them, we can. The opt-out option is still in place, and I think it's really important that it stays there. My guess is that most people wouldn't use the opt-out option, and I think that that's a good thing too, and it doesn't mean that we won't be able to stay friends with the people across campus who share our interests and our passions. My sophomore year, like I said, I lived down in Armstrong and a lot of my friends lived up in Agard, and I ate lots and lots of chicken parm calzones from Colonial's that year and it got harder and harder for me to make that walk from Mission up to Agard, but I did it [laughter], and it worked out okay, and I kept those friendships, and I don't think it would be a bad thing if this campus became a little bit more mobile, not only so we can work off those calzones [laughter], but also so that we can interact with each other in the public space. I think that the cluster system will give us the opportunity to maintain close relationships, close bonds with people that we live around, while also having relationships with friends from across campus. I think that system sounds a lot better to me than an alternative, maybe, where people self-segregate into different houses and live around all their friends and never really want to leave. Granted, however, that the cluster system isn't perfect. But Professor Dudley said it before, and I agree, that we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. The fact is that I think the cluster system is better and I'll tell you why I think so. I think we need another layer of community and belonging on this campus. We need to make our houses and dorms more than just places to live. I think if we do that we'll be able to foster genuine interaction between peer groups and friends. We'll be able to help include people who right now feel like they don't have a place that they belong to because they aren't part of an extracurricular group. We'll be able to also foster a new and kind of fun tradition and pride in this campus. I think the clusters aren't like entries for some very important reasons. They're about ten times as big, you get to pick into them with whomever you want, you won't have JAs. But I think that, in other ways, they are a lot like entries, in other important ways. I remember, at the end of my JA year, something that really impressed me was, we had this 50 Cent poster in our common room, and one morning we woke up and someone had stolen the 50 Cent poster. Everyone was really bummed about it, even people who weren't necessarily part of the social dynamic in the entry. That was because that common room in Williams D meant something to them, you know, it was more than just part of their dorm. I think that we can create that with the cluster system. Clusters, now, under the new proposal, are going to be more geographically centralized. Clusters are generally going to eat in the same dining halls. I think that because of those things we're really going to create a sense of belonging and a sense of community in places that we haven't really had up until now. This is a really great community, it's a really great place, I've had an awesome time here, but that doesn't mean that it can't be a little bit better, and I'm convinced that the cluster system will make it better. Thank you. [applause]

Gnozzio: Thank you for those remarks. Professor Bailey, if you'd care to cross-examine David you have three minutes to do so.

Bailey: Sure. I had a question about--you were talking about having another layer, and you said some other layer other than dorms... doesn't this simply replace the dorm situation we have now with a different dorm situation? Aren't we confusing problems with housing with problems with parties or social gatherings? Perhaps, maybe, a social layer is completely different than a housing layer.

Seligman: So--I'm sorry, could you clarify...?

Bailey: So you say that you are looking for another layer besides dorms, and I guess I don't quite see...

[crosstalk]

Seligman: I think, frankly, that in many houses on this campus there isn't that sense of belonging, there isn't that sense of community, and I think that's a shame. I think that through the cluster system we could add that. I don't think we'd lose very much. I think we'd still maintain, you know, other friendships from across campus, and sports teams and clubs would still be in place. I think that the cluster system, in which we'd live with people over three years, and now it seems like eat with them, would really kind of foster a new form, a new mode of community on campus.

Bailey: Sure. Now you say you are interested in a system that will allow you to have close bonds in your dorm and across campus, and then you compare this with self-segregation of the current system. How is close bonds with people in your dorm and close bonds with the dorm across campus not self-segregation within your own cluster?

Seligman: First of all, I want to clarify, I don't necessarily think that the current system represents all these groups self-segregated across campus. I think the nature of the lottery system means that can't happen. But I do think, though, that one important aspect of the cluster system is that it would create genuine bonds between different peer groups and different groups on campus. I think that the--I didn't agree with the proposal to limit the pick size to four initially because I thought that those--the bonds that might form then wouldn't be genuine ones, that people just thrown together in a dorm might not necessarily bond the way that I think they might in a cluster system.

Bailey: Thanks.

Kugler: Thank you. Jonathan Landsman to deliver the next speech. [applause]

Landsman: The CUL is giving us two weeks, and the debate union has given me nine minutes, so let's get to it. All of you out there represent a fraction of the hundreds of students on this campus who are ambivalent or less than fully informed about anchor housing. This is natural, considering that you probably only first heard about it perhaps a month ago, or at least heard about the full proposal then, and are wary of a change of this magnitude. I think this is quite reasonable. Unfortunately, these students don't have the leisure of time to come to terms either way about the changes. The CUL is determined to send its proposal to Dean Roseman by the end of the month. With about two weeks to go before the CUL's self-imposed deadline, the latest revision to the proposal is only one day old. Yesterday's Record unveiled the CUL's addition of class caps to clusters, which is an aspect that was rejected by the CUL of 2002, and a feature of the plan that has not been mentioned at any prior forum. In fact, the debaters and I got an e-mail at about 11:00 this morning detailing even more changes to the proposal. You'll hear the pro side tonight appeal to the authority of the CUL's four years of work on this proposal. Those four years of work have been commendable. The CUL's work in the past two weeks has been truly Herculean. [mild laughter] During these two weeks, the composition of clusters was greatly changed, the number of clusters lowered, the opt-out option dropped, the opt-out option added back in again, and a slew of changes regarding co-ops and entries were made. Anchor housing is not an issue in which students are to blame for their own ignorance. It has been nearly impossible to follow the significant changes made to this proposal. We on the side that would not implement anchor housing will argue tonight three points. First, that the best, final proposal for social life at Williams will combine aspects of free agency and the cluster model, using student choice and the idiosyncrasies of Williams geography to its advantage rather than fighting both. And we will outline for you such a possible system. Second, that the rush towards the plan's implementation has been indefensibly hasty. The CUL has yet to stand behind a draft of its proposal for longer than a week. If any system is going to work, the students need to know what we're getting into. This is the only way we can fully understand and invest in [unintelligible]. Third, because we believe that any system lacking at least a majority of student investment will fail, we believe that students should have a final say in the decision to implement. The CUL objects to a vote now on the grounds that the campus is uninformed. But staying uninformed has been impossible, yet another reason implementation must wait. I will spend the rest of my time focused on the heart of the issue: how well the CUL system will actually help our campus. The arguments of the side supporting the CUL focus heavily on the vision of the plan working. They want you to see the cluster utopia without thinking too critically about whether the road will take you there. I want to focus now on that road. Let's travel down it together, see if it reaches the destination that the CUL claims. [mild laughter] Their first goal is more autonomous social life. Well, I can't argue with that, although I think a little doublespeak is taking place when the other side claims that anchor affiliation will be more autonomous than free agency. But to make their case the strongest it can be before attacking it, the argument is that social life, now, depends on the central impetus and funding too much. Over and over again you'll hear poor ACE cited as the group that's trying to do it all, and the CUL has often spoken about this scene as though ACE were the only meaningful social force on this campus. In doing so the CUL sets up ACE as a straw man, and minimizes recognition of the great and varied social role of our clubs, WUFO and the Outing Club, for example. But you know what? I'd like to decentralize social planning more myself. I just don't think creating five local funding bureaucracies will make it easier to hold events than it is now. ACE [unintelligible] cosponsorship has yet to turn a petitioner away. Second, it's hard enough to find two competent treasurers to treasure CC and ACE. I honestly don't think we can find five more. [laughter] In fact, this way of thinking, that the community must organize the social life of the individual, is the problem itself. The main answer to a lack of events you like here is not to wait for a system to enable one to occur. If you think in that passive way, your wish will probably never be fulfilled. Whatever your dream is, it takes someone like you who loves it to get it going. For people who wait for something like the cluster system to deliver them from stagnancy, no system will be their messiah. But there are people who step forward and do become leaders. And there may well be a way for a system to help everyone if it helps those individuals. I firmly believe those individuals can be anyone, but, for the sake of focusing on something with a body of evidence, let's talk about the HCs. Would the CUL's current proposal alleviate the problems that HCs face today? The biggest obstacle an HC faces today in building house community is the composition of the house. A house of residents who already feel as though they share a common bond of a kind, such as in Mission or the Odd Quad, has a head start on becoming a meaningful community. In these cases, any HC finds strong support for almost any initiative, because the residents are predisposed to work and play together. By contrast, a house of people assigned to live together without this connection is far harder for HCs to lead, often impossible. But the CUL seems bent on making the HC job even harder. Their measures force clusters to be made randomly. They are an attack on house and cluster identity. Furthermore, let's think hard about what it will mean to inhabit--cohabit--a cluster of separate houses. It's already hard enough to bring together a house of 60 people in any meaningful way. The benefits of anchor housing will only be realized if groups of 275, not including associated freshmen, develop a meaningful connection. With a house of 60 people, you at least share a physical structure that facilitates mingling--that's the point of the Mission and Prospect renovations, which our side applauds. But because the CUL has insisted on placing every house in a cluster, their system works against our geography and best renovations. Putting Tyler Annex in a cluster with Armstrong won't make students in those houses feel as though they live together--nor Agard and Mark Hopkins, nor West and Gladden. The problem is not only the raw distance between those houses, but the fact that a house like Armstrong has a much better candidate for community formation right next door. Let's use this fact instead of fighting it. There are areas of campus where geography strongly enables real clusters if we abandon the notion that everything on campus should belong to a cluster. Trying to lump Tyler, Tyler Annex, Agard, the co-ops, and the row houses into clusters will drag clusters down. These houses stand better alone, and clusters are more close-knit without them--more likely to become close-knit without them. Let's make clusters where the geography will make them real. These places are the Odd Quad, they Greylock Quad, Mission, and the Dodd Quad. It's in these places that a real cluster identity has the best chance. As do the benefits we aim for: cluster traditions, HC cooperation, faculty affiliation, for a few. But there is no need for a three-year affiliation. No need for an opt-out that's intentionally made crappy, [laughter] but yet is your only way to live with 80 percent of the campus. In the system we propose, students would choose whether or not to join the houses that form a cluster, and they will choose their cluster. If clusters are a success, people will choose to pick back into them, and new members will be drawn in. I've heard some people argue for cluster housing as an experiment worth conducting, though the word seems misapplied, since a crucial part of any experiment in any discipline is the publication of its procedures and data, with extensive peer review, before any of its predictions are to be trusted. As you listen to the debate today, remember that the anchors of the CUL proposal are not the goal in themselves, but rather the suggested means to an end. We think there has been little proof given that these changes will achieve the desired result. The cluster proposal has not been clearly laid out with specifics for all of us to review, and perhaps most importantly, strikes us as more likely to harm than help our real goal: stronger social community and the benefits of a new and meaningful interaction it can be reaped from. [applause]

Gnozzio: Thank you, Jonathan. David, if you'd care to cross-examine him?

Seligman: Sure. Hi, Jonathan. So, you voiced a lot of concerns and you seem to think that the proposal is moving too quickly, that changes are continuing to be made, and we haven't really had time to consider it. I'm curious, though, why you necessarily think that's a bad thing. It seems like the CUL is responding to student concerns and amending their proposal accordingly. I mean, you yourself seem to be adding to this dialogue. You're proposing your own system and you said we had an afternoon to consider the CUL's, but we've had three minutes to consider yours. So, do you think that this open dialogue is really a liability here? I think that it would be a good thing.

Landsman: All right. I never said open dialogue was a liability. If the point were just to create the best plan and that were all that mattered, just the best plan, then, you know, yeah, we could implement it any time as soon as we'd felt we'd gotten it. It doesn't matter what plan you come up with. The point is that students have to invest in it. Students are going to be the ultimate builders of community; students have to invest and believe in it. That's what takes time. That's why we can't just come to some final conclusion tonight and implement it tomorrow, or in two weeks, or perhaps not even next fall.

Seligman: You also mentioned that the cluster system wouldn't necessarily fix the social problems that I think it would. You seem to say that student initiative would really fix those problems. I agree with you, but the fact is that kind of initiative isn't there right now--isn't there under the current system. How do you think we can create it without something like clusters?

Landsman: My honest answer is that I don't think you can--I think a lot of the difference--it really is just individual choice. That's my honest answer. I realize that no system can change that, and I think that needs to be acknowledged. A system at best can make it easier for the people who do step forward: HCs, JAs, the good ones especially. So that's what we should be looking for. We shouldn't think that the system will magically create a lot more people to try, or magically [unintelligible] a lot more people to try.

Seligman: Very quickly...

Landsman: Yeah.

Seligman: So you mentioned in your proposal that you felt like some houses just should be left out of the clusters. Do you advocate more clusters?

Landsman: No, I listed the clusters I advocated. I advocated four... am I right? Is that--that's your question, right? Yeah, I want--I would propose Dodd, Mission, the Odd Quad, and Greylock. I think we should use the geography of campus to make clusters and not fight the geography where geography [unintelligible] to making clusters.

Kugler: Thank you. Now, Professor Cruz, you have twelve minutes.

Cruz: Thanks. Got sound? More or less? Good. So except for Morty being here this looks like a Philosophy department talk. [laughter] A lot fewer people. [laughter] So, I was talking to one of my students the other day, and she asked me whether I was doing this simply as an intellectual exercise or whether I actually believed the position that I'm going to be defending tonight. The truth is that I believe the position I'm defending tonight. I'm telling you my views about what I regard as some exciting proposals that the CUL is cultivating. It is true, however, that my old, dear friend, Professor Dudley, asked me to do this. And the thing is, if Will asks me to do something, chances are I'm going to do it. And that's where I want to start today, because I rely on Will; he relies on me. We met each other in '87. He was my JA. I was assigned to Morgan Mid-West. He's just a guy I got to know. He's just a guy that, serendipitously, I formed an important relationship with. Someone that has changed me, and I hope I've changed him. When I was thinking back at my decision to come to Williams, my decision to pursue a college that has a residential life system, I was thinking back about that decision, I realized that then it was inchoate. I had no idea what attracted me to a residential life system, although I knew I was attracted to it. I knew that there was something about the framework that was compelling. And thinking about it for this debate made me realize, in retrospect, by reconstruction, that what I found compelling is that there be serendipitous friendships formed of the sort that I have with Will, of the sort that I have with my old friend Mike Denofrio, college roommate, my old friend Christian Olmes--he's who I lived with, as a first-year student here at Williams. I also realize, though, that there are people in my life that are as important as Will that I sought out, that I elected to affiliate with. People whose interests were my interests, whose self-conception was my self-conception. And as I thought about it some more for tonight's discussion, I realized that maybe what I was craving, maybe what I saw in the brochures, was the opportunity for this blend between serendipity--meeting people who are meaningful to me, meeting people who would make a difference to me throughout my life serendipitously--maybe a blend between that and the possibility of pursuing my own self-conception--identifying with folks that met my vision of myself, spending time with people that self-conceived as I did. My second year in college, I elected to join the Odd Quad. I had a wonderful time there, watching Star Trek in the Prospect TV room, [laughter] parties in Currier ballroom. I had a wonderful time spending time with people who conceived of themselves as I conceived of myself. That opportunity, the opportunity to be with people like me, was of crucial importance to me. But on the other hand, the opportunity for these accidental meetings, these collisions that you don't anticipate, these collisions that aren't solely conditioned by your view of yourself--which might be wrong, or might change, right? The possibility of spending time with people who aren't like you ended up being as powerful that second year as my time spent in Currier ballroom playing Dungeons and Dragons. I was a JA junior year. Had a wonderful time doing that, and I lived in a co-op my senior year. During those years in college I played in a college band with guys who lived in Gladden. Gladden! You gotta know that something has gone wrong when your friends--when you're living in the Odd Quad and your friends all add "ey" to their last name--Halsey and Halesey and Whalesey--right? Guys that I played in the band with, guys who played on the hockey team. Well, actually, something wasn't going wrong. These were folks that I met because one cultivates accidents in one's life. One cultivates the opportunity to meet people who are different from oneself. So, serendipity and self-conception. I say that the CUL proposal fosters these two virtues. They put it in a different way. They put it in terms of the goals of the housing system, and I admire those goals. Those goals are articulate. Those goals have been responsive to your feedback. But seeing from a different level, you can see these goals as an attempt to balance, to blend, serendipity and self-conception. And that's why I'm enthusiastic about it. That's why I'm hopeful that you'll cultivate both these kinds of opportunity. But people are worried about it, and fair enough. One worry that folks have is the perception of lost choices. Right, the perception of lost choices, because since the beginning of time man has chosen his room at Williams. [laughter] Or since 1994. The perception of lost choices. Well, it turns out--and now I'm going to sound like I'm reading dialogue from the Matrix sequel--it turns out, that what freedom is, is having the opportunity for choosing. What freedom is is having the opportunity for making choices. Not restricting the possibility of choosing to one kind of choice: "I get to pick my room and you know I'm going to get that senior single in Dodd, right? 'Cause I've got the lottery ticket." It's not that, freedom isn't. But what freedom is, is having the chance to choose from options that might not have been there. It's having the chance, in a strange environment with folks who are different from you, of cultivating interests that you didn't know you were going to have, or maybe just accidentally, possibly, not that you should be altruistic about it, inducing in them interests that they didn't know that they would have. Christian Olmes wasn't a particularly likely Dungeons and Dragons player, now was he? So, freedom is not just having the chance to choose your room 'cause you got the lottery ticket to the best one on campus. Freedom is trying to craft the possibility of having more choices in the future, right. That's what this housing system does. How does it do it? Well, the way it does it is, it enables you to live with your friends, it enables you to live with a group of people who are like you, that share your self-conception, but it puts that group in an environment where serendipity is a reality. Right? It puts that group in an environment where you might accidentally run into an interest that you didn't know you had. And that's why I admire this proposal. Folks are also worried about it because it challenges the integrity of fragile subgroups on campus. Fair enough. What I want to say about that is: that fragility is an illusion. You cultivate your interests and yourself, you cultivate your self-conception, in a robust enough way, that leads you to walk across campus--heaven forbid--walk across campus to play a war game, walk across campus to play some intramural sport. You cultivate the opportunity to make serious your self-conception by crossing boundaries, and this proposal allows you to do it. So the fragility of marginal groups, I think, is an illusion. Now some groups, some groups might be thinking that their fragility is real. Their fragility is such that they're always a minority in our culture. And I was a misfit in that way, too. But there are opportunities on this campus, opportunities involving ideas, opportunities involving the classroom, opportunities involving VISTA, opportunities involving a conversation, that allow you to maintain the integrity of your seemingly fragile groups, where that integrity doesn't need to be reflected in your living arrangement. Why? Because you're trying to also cultivate serendipity. You're trying to be the sort of person who might accidentally run into an interest that you didn't know you had. So what's the campus going to look like under this proposal? Here's what I think about it. I think the clusters are going to come up with their benign traditions--we had benign traditions in my day--there was that guy who rode his skateboard mostly naked through the winter, right? There was that guy. [laughter] We had benign traditions at my house. Your cluster is going to form benign traditions. You're going to come to identify with those benign traditions. You're going to help create those benign traditions. You're going to feel a sense of belonging through those benign traditions. And what they'll allow, is a kind of force towards sociality that no individual could have. If Dodd House is the house that has the great party where people dress up three times a semester, or if Currier House has the big WUFO party, or if yet another house is the house that has won Trivia eight years running, that kind of tradition is going to spark in you the opportunity to participate in something that you couldn't have invented yourself, that no one person in that cluster could have invented herself. That's why you don't rely on individuals to invent a tradition, a benign tradition. What you rely on instead is the tradition of an arbitrarily-assigned group, arbitrarily constructed group of folks, because this is an expression of the best virtues of a residential college. You might run into something you didn't know you liked. But you also want to cultivate your own self-conception. You want to live with your friends. You want to make sure that you do the things that you do. Fair enough. Under this proposal, you can do both. Will, I got your back. [laughter] [applause]

Gnozzio: [unintelligible] for those remarks. Jonathan, would you care to cross-examine him?

Landsman: Yes, Professor. Is there any other time at Williams I'm going to get to make a professor do that? [laughter] You talk about serendipity in houses and maintenance of the people you want to maintain in extracurriculars and classes and all-campus social events. Why is there not serendipity in the latter? Why can there not be maintenance in the former?

Cruz: My view of the cluster proposal is that clusters are going to make possible that which is impossible in a free agent system that has single individuals, or very small groups of individuals, trying desperately to maintain some sense of tradition, some sense of cohesiveness among them, while at the same time hoping against hope that there might be opportunities for serendipity. Why aren't there going to be opportunities for serendipity in some naturally evolving system? Because the kind of benign conditions that will crop up in a cluster are just too hard to do by individuals, too hard to do by folks who lead busy lives and are trying to make sense of their time here at Williams. You want to plug into a structure, but you also want to be a structure.

Landsman: So I'm not misinterpreting your argument, and you are saying that you believe that by restricting people's choices of where to live for three years you will increase opportunities in serendipity?

Cruz: You bet.

[laughter]

[crosstalk]

[laughter]

Bailey: I'm the only person who's not an alum, here, of this institution, but if I went here, I'd pick Joe in my group and we'd be living at the coffee shop [unintelligible] [laughter]. In any case, great pleasure to join in on a reasoned discussion here about how to restrict housing with my good friends on the affirmative. So let's quickly review their arguments. First, those for this proposal suggest that dorms should be, in some sense, a microcosm of the college, and that any diversity within the college would necessarily be a feature of any smaller part. In fact, the CUL has no means of guaranteeing without some intervention that hockey players will be spread thin, that artists will be found in every corner, that any particular minority will be represented in each of these four or five or six clusters. Nor is there any evidence that such a distribution would be an improvement on what we already have under the current system of relatively unfettered choice, and as Joe says, serendipity, and harmony among students. This language of microcosm is borrowed from Yale, where residential housing models quote-"a small college in a university." I've got news: we're already a small college, and one whose quality of life would, I think we feel, be reduced by arbitrary division. I would also note that these microcosms are hardly random. The Yale college system allows, for example, legacy freshmen to pick into houses of one's parent. How far along this path are we willing to progress? For whatever positive there is in redesigning quote-"the third pillar of social life," there seems to me an attendant negative in ignoring the traction, the uniqueness of individuals. As one student put, "individuals are not interchangeable." It's unfortunate that students would be carefully selected to arrive at this institution and be dealt with in an random and arbitrary way when we could argue that our greatest feature is an environment relatively unburdened by mandate and enriched by personal choice. The college should, it seems to me, follow Dean Roseman's advice to parents, and let students alone. A second point for this proposal is that it is a step away from the ACE-like model which would improve the diversity of social gatherings: chess matches and poetry readings, movies and a multitude of smaller parties all instead of a single party where there are quote-"300 people crawling in through the window." [laughter] We will not argue this point. [laughter] We will, however, point out that the existence of some of the most successful, if not odd, clusters of students on this campus, is frequently used as an argument for mixing things up, for uniformly distributing personalities from east to west, for restricting the gathering of students of a common mind. Now, let us remind ourselves of the case against this proposal, which to my accounting still stands as the successful side of this debate. First, to the extent that this proposal is still in flux it's ill-formed. If we were to make a decision today we can only guess at many of the particulars. Each round of reflection by the CUL suggests a different number of clusters, a regrouping of houses, a worriment optings in and out, variable dates of successive acceptance of fate for unleashing of partitioning and randomness. Only today we learn of a delay in the implementation of this proposal. We know little of how these clusters will be funded. Will they have dedicated dining halls? Will they be mentored, or guided, or how will they be adjusted? We almost know nothing of how they'll be governed. Do not get me wrong--the CUL has been responsive, but we believe, as it appears they believe, the proposal is not yet mature. Their intentions are good, but one has the sense that they feel the pressure of deadlines. Understand, this proposal, if strong, would be just as acceptable if it was presented next year. We have no great hurry. If you are for this proposal, more time will only improve it. If you're against the proposal, pause will simply set the argument. Either way, we can delay. Our second argument against this proposal, and this is our primary point, is that it limits the choice of students. No other fair system of human organization I can think of is modeled in the way described. In response to complaints about this proposal by students, the Chair states, quote-"We will try to be as fair as we can within the constraints of the system"-unquote. We believe these constraints are, frankly, just unnecessary. Recall the plight of the first-year student. After a semester on campus, he or she has precisely one choice: make a decision forever to adopt one corner of campus, or wildly throw oneself anywhere but here, that is toward one of the remaining five, or three, or four corners of the campus. The President's charge to this committee was, quote-"to improve what is already good." The restricted housing features of this proposal really fall short, I'm afraid, of this lofty goal. Currently, students have the opportunity to live anywhere they want. Their chances of success are, of course, improved by seniority. The proposal makes it impossible for students to live, for example, in four distinct locations on campus, a pattern the 2002 CUL pointed out is commonly adopted by students. They claim this to be a feature; we think this is a flaw. Even in the old house system, the one that Joe was under, students had greater choice. By rank-selecting houses, I believe that Joe was better informing the process that placed him. The only certainty in the new house system comes from sticking with the members of your randomly constituted entry. Even in the case of fraternities, students were more the masters of their fate than they would be tomorrow if this proposal were adopted tonight. Strangely, the CUL argues an increased size of the room draw pick seems possible in cluster housing, but is an evil in an all-campus draw. The logic is really unclear. If a pick size of six or eight is possible in a draw of 300, it seems even less dangerous in a draw of 1500. We encourage students to question this, as we do. The cost of social engineering, no matter how lightly sketched, is always some loss of liberty. The affirmative will undoubtedly counter that "we are hardly engineering." Still, two people meeting in, say, their junior year, have a one-in-four chance of being allowed to live together, all in the name of precisely, what? All because a committee without the sanction of the student body has decided that arbitrary placement of walls is better than reasoned individual choice. Our third argument considers the nature of the cluster itself. At other schools, Yale, for example, houses are a result of decades of experience. Each house rests around a dedicated dining hall. Each house is guided by resident faculty, or resident staff, or resident graduate student. Houses are the homes to dining facilities, libraries, classrooms, and computer clusters. Professor Dew of the CUL has already volunteered the college is unlikely to provide these dedicated facilities. And frankly, I'm not sure that the administration is really that dedicated to following the footsteps of these convenient examples. For every example of cluster housing there are more examples of freer, I'll say less stuffy, campuses, where students can make choices, choices that are unfortunately easily discounted by those who don't have to live through the decision. Of the 21 residential colleges surveyed in the 2002 CUL, we recently heard of only two that boast residential housing. Are we really going to follow in the steps of Bowdoin? [laughter] Finally, a proposal by a committee is, I think, not necessarily representative of student opinion or interest. If one looks for the successful institutions on this campus, institutions that genuinely distinguish this campus from, really, all others, one finds institutions that rise up from the student body, unencumbered by the faculty or administration. The Junior Advisor system, the last vestige of fraternity social support system, arguably serves as the most successful form of advising on campus. It is not a product of the CUL, it's not of the faculty, no administration cooked it up. It is wholly the enterprise and the responsibility of students for the enjoyment of students. The Honor Code is, to the frequent surprise of my new colleagues, a student mandated and enforced standard. Students voted it in. Students control its amendment. Students could, if they so desired, dissolve it. These are student institutions. They have survived precisely, I'll argue, because they represent the will of the student body. They are institutions that Johnny Harvard or Eli Yale would be proud of. We should lead by innovation and not follow by emulation. As my partner points out, any student life proposal that lacks the imprimatur of the student body is eventually destined to be ineffective. If this is the season for change, change is possible. First, implement portions of the proposal that do not limit student choice. The CUL has promised greater attention to improvements on the student housing. This is excellent. They've promised potential house-based dinners, sort of a meals-on-wheels program. [laughter] This is a wonderful idea. They expect students and faculty to get together on more social occasions. So do I. My partner agrees. They'd promised that the new student center will greatly improve the quality of life in the community. We concur. Most of these proposals were forwarded three years ago. All of these proposals can, and should, be implemented today. Not one of these improvements, however, is a derived feature of clusters, and not one reduces student choice. Second, let's consider directly addressing the improvement of social life. Let's seed budgets for four or five, or yes, even six ACE-like social clubs, perhaps hosted by row houses. Allow students to join, as voting members, any club of their choice. The precise level of funding might be a combination of a fixed base and an amount based on the size of the voting membership. Voting members would determine how to use these social funds, but the expectation would be that parties would be open to all. A larger group of student leaders would be responsible for social gatherings at Williams, and I believe the range of activities would be improved. More importantly, each member would have a retargetable investment in the system, an investment that, as Joe states, is elected, they're elected to me. Notice that this keeps the notions of house identity and dress-up parties in Dodd available. Last, real innovation remains a possibility in the room draw. For example, if the social scene is rooted in row houses, it seems not unreasonable to reserve a small number of high-quality rooms for sophomores in each of these locations, perhaps with the expectation that students drawing these rooms would simply help to govern the social group. That is, after all, what happened in fraternities. If you do not appreciate my proposal, I'd point out that a voluntary cluster-like housing is feasible in the current system. Groups of students, through restricting their own choice, could randomly assign themselves to one of several groups, and the philosophers will appreciate, perhaps we could call them Big Endian and Little Endian. Large, organized groups can, for the most part, guarantee their location on a particular section of campus--at least that's the argument by those who support this proposal. Whatever the proposal is, eventually established by the CUL, and no matter what your position is on this debate, we will hope that you will ask for a student referendum on a formally written proposal before it is passed to the administration and trustees. The support of students seems necessary for any solution where we hope for and expect any lasting and real success. That is assuming, of course, that you think that there is a real problem. I thank you for this opportunity and your attention, and continue to stand ready to improve the social climate of the campus while defending real choice for students in housing. [applause]

Gnozzio: Professor Cruz, would you care to cross-examine?

Cruz: Professor Bailey, do you detect any tension in insisting that the CUL be responsive to student concerns and then complaining when the CUL makes a change?

Bailey: Oh, I don't have any problems with them making changes, I do have problems when we say that there's going to be a deadline at the end of the month where this is going to the administration, and we don't have any real sense much before that deadline of what the proposal is. I really do believe that students need to be able to get access to this proposal. Students need to vote on it. I think the chance, actually, frankly, is very good for it to pass. And if the students vote for this proposal, and it passes, then it's very easy for the Dean, for the President to go to the Trustees and say, "let's plow a million dollars into putting kitchens in the row houses," or whatever's necessary. But it's important that students have that opportunity, and it's important that they have an adequate amount of time to see a formal proposal which we expect will not change. The CUL has been very, very responsive, and we're all appreciative of that. They worked very hard on this.

Cruz: So, is an adequate time a month, or four months, or...?

Bailey: Oh, a year would be fine. You know, adequate time could be a month, or four months. It's going to be delayed by a year, but it's still going to be installed very soon, so we really need to get on top of this, we need to say, "okay, this is the proposal, let's vote it up or down," and if it votes down then I think we need to think very carefully about this, and take a look at it for another year. Again, I don't know, my sense is that it would be a close vote, but that it would probably pass.

Cruz: So I'm a mere philosopher, I don't understand these issues, but there was this room that I really wanted to live in in Fitch when I was on campus. So is the probability greater that I would have been able to live in that room under the free agency system, that is, if I had gotten a random room draw before senior year, than if I had been randomly assigned to some group and then participated in the housing lottery?

Bailey: The probability is greater that you would be in a particular room in Fitch under this system than it is in the new system, because as a freshman if you don't get placed in a Fitch-related house, you're not going to get a chance [unintelligible], so you're going to have to go random, and then you have a what, one-in-four chance of landing in the Fitch area and then you have a room drawing. So there is some opportunity for it to happen, but probably not the same one.

Cruz: And by the way, in thirty seconds, so the proposal that requires the imprimatur of the students, you want to give them a written referendum, is it this group of students, or do we count me and Will and Cappy and future generations of students in this referendum?

Bailey: Well, I think that, you know, we depend on everyone on this campus making wise decisions. Faculty make decisions about building buildings. Those decisions are obviously not just decisions they make for themselves but for people in the future. Librarians buy books for people in the future. Students, I think, know they're burdened with making a decision about students in the future.

[applause]

Kugler: Thank you. Jonathan to deliver the first rebuttal speech, four minutes.

Landsman: Professor Cruz said something that helped me make an argument that I couldn't quite figure out how to make myself. I kind of think Professor Cruz has it backwards when he says that we should aim for serendipity in houses, maintenance in classes and extracurriculars and parties. Actually, I hope I never have to choose my classes with any kind of thought that I would need to maintain friendships by doing that. Or my extracurriculars, I hope that I just pursue what I love, and then form, like, a great contradancing society or something. [laughter] And, you know, he talks about--which I still don't fully understand, but--how being restricted to where you live for three years will increase your freedom and serendipity. Look, if you really want serendipity, you've got it right now. I mean, you can pick anywhere you live on campus, and the system, which is a lottery, which, as they said, you can't always live where you want, you don't live where you want, if you just greedily pursue the most attractive housing on campus, you're gonna get some randomization there, 'cause people of all groups are doing that. If you get restricted by a low pick, you'll get randomized somewhere else, to a large degree. Look, the last word here is not that it's never right to surrender a set of freedoms. The point is that when you can accomplish the same set of goals with more individual freedom or with less, you choose more. That goes double when the system, like the one I've spoken against today, provides a less certain road than the system that preserves freedom. Some students favor the plan, but many that you would like to see get behind it have not. The JAs have said they favor anchor housing, but they also have opposed the inclusion of frosh in the system itself, which is as if you were to say that the CUL is a good cook, but you wouldn't feed their food to your kids. Others who think they'd favor the plan say they like the idea a lot more than the method. If you fall into this category, consider the plan we have proposed today, which they really haven't spoken against or addressed, at all, which will provide space for cluster-supported living, but no more immobility or artificiality than we have in our current room draw. There's one more final, personal message, unrelated to the rest of my argument, that I'd like to leave you with. I know it probably seems tonight, from the vigor with which I've argued against--argued my side, that I oppose anchor housing in any case. This actually isn't the case. I have huge doubts for the CUL's system, but outweighing all of them is one belief that is more important to me, which is this: the particular structure of residential life on this campus matters far less than student faith and dedication to it. We Williams students are resilient and creative. We probably could carve something good out of the CUL's system, perhaps something really good. I just don't think we have to. I wish to leave you with a piece of advice that I hope is guiding. Even if you hate anchor housing, deference to an honesty invested majority is noble, and best for everyone in the end. If the CUL or administration ever allows this issue to be decided by students, and we see a majority one way or another, the best thing for everyone, on both sides, is to bow to it, trust your peers, and go on trying to make this place better. Cooperation and shared investment are the most important ingredients for community. If we remain too stubborn to have those, it doesn't matter what system we adopt. But if the CUL and its sympathizers continue to prevent the honest determination of sentiment by surveys of any kind, by a floor vote tonight, we can never have this requisite of an honest consensus. We can never take up the burden of community-building together. When all has settled, if your fellow students put their love in a system, whatever it is, lay down your arms. Until that point in time, educate yourselves. Think about the proposal; think about its alternatives. And keep asking the CUL and administration to let us reach a time when we can actually come together on one. [applause]

Kugler: Thank you, Jonathan. Dave, your final speech.

Seligman: So I'll make this brief. It seems like Professor Cruz and my arguments have been that under the cluster system, we wouldn't lose much, but we'd gain a lot. I think that lots of us on this campus really wouldn't be inconvenienced at all by it, by the cluster system. We'd still live with the same people we picked in with as freshmen. We'd still meet people that lived around us. That doesn't mean, though, that some people can't imagine being inconvenienced. But imagine what we'd gain under the system. I think that everyone on this campus cares about the people in their clubs, on their teams, their friends, but rarely does it seem that they care about their houses. I think that's something to be gained under the cluster proposal. Right now, as I said, this campus is good, but I think we can make it a lot better. Values that we hold dear, values like diversity and community, seems like they could be increased under the cluster system. Living situation isn't the be all and end all of our life at Williams. We can still hang out with the same people. We can still have the same interests and form the same kinds of friendships. But it seems like by living around people that are part of our cluster, we can form new friends with people that we might otherwise not. I think that this is going to benefit the student body incredibly, and I support it. Thank you. [applause]

Kugler: And thank you. I'd like to thank all our speakers tonight, particularly Professors Bailey and Cruz, who are with us for the second time, and the audience, for your polite attention. Have a good evening. [applause]