For those of us who weren't blessed with either the Prince Albert suite or a single, freshman-year housing was a nightmare. The default two-room triples are legendary for their thin walls, poor lighting, odd sleeping arrangements, general unattractiveness and lack of space. Something must be done to rectify the situation, but exactly what is still a matter of heated debate in the Student Senate, faculty meetings, and James and Stearns.

Of the two alternatives suggested by the Residential Master Plan Committee, scheme six, which involves renovating Pratt and Morrow Dormitories into freshman dorms and building two new dorms for the displaced sophomore class, tentatively designated C and D, solves the housing crunch in a much more efficient and logical manner than scheme four, which targets Williston and Pratt Museum for changes.

Despite insistence that freshmen would suffer some irreparable loss of all sense of community without a unified freshman quad, and the overwhelming knee-jerk reaction in favor of a quad on the SGO survey, the reality for many students is that living next to someone guarantees little in terms of instant bonding. The fact is that North and South are no further from James and Stearns than from Pratt.

Moreover, by placing freshmen in Pratt and Morrow, the integrity of a quad as a bonding space is maintained, and we keep Williston Hall and the Pratt Geology building intact, reinforcing the balance of academics and social life so desirable at a smaller college like Amherst. To give over an entire quad to seven freshman dorms and eliminate practically all academic buildings in that area sounds almost like the beginning of a horror movie, or at least "Animal House."

Scheme six betters the lot of both freshmen and upperclassmen, by creating new default housing (C and D dorms) and giving freshmen the current sophomore dorms. Pratt and Morrow would have to go through several renovations sometime in the future anyways, so wouldn't it better to take care of the freshman and sophomore crunch concurrently? Although Pratt as it stands now is not conducive to socialization, it has more potential, as it is already a dorm, for transformation than the building where we now house our famous collection of dinosaur tracks.

The only thing to keep in mind while rebuilding Pratt and Morrow into freshman dorms is to reemphasize the need for extra common spaces. A sense of community is first built inside a dorm, between the residents of one hall, and then it may branch out to include other halls, and eventually the building across the quad.