Lauren McClain Anthropology 1995 Juana Davila October 14th Desirability of Seating in Leverett House Dining Hall Leverett

House is a beautiful example of the stereotypical Harvard architecture, all red brick and iron scrollwork over the windows. It is a visually lovely place, and the dining hall is no exception. Outside the dining hall is the place where students congregate before meeting for dinner or lunch, talking, laughing, before moving inside to share a meal. It contains the student mailboxes, as well as a large stack of trays that rarely get used. Leverett house utilizes trayless dining, which makes the dining hall feel much more like a home rather than an institutional cafeteria. It is comforting for students who easily become homesick, to have a place that feels rather like a larger version of the dining room at home. There are three entrances, one into the dining hall proper, one into the entre area, and one into the salad bar. In the center of these three entrances, a member of the dining hall staff, usually a red haired lady named Bonnie, sits smilingly waiting to swipe students IDs into the ID card reader before they enter the dining hall. Students swap stories about their days with her, listen to her (slightly off-color) jokes, and chuckle as she tells them about her favorite Eminem song or the arthritis in her hands. Bonnie definitely has her favorites, the students who she detains before she allows them to enter the dining hall. Its a simple social

interaction, a greeting, but with the essence of a royal command, and not to be refused. Once you get past Bonnie and into the dining hall, you see the two brightly lit chandeliers, hanging from cream-colored ceilings with very fanciful scrollwork. There are windows lining each wall, covered with delicate wrought-iron grates, and the dining hall is full of tables. The tables are of all shapes and sizes, fitting between four and twelve people. There are lanes spanning the length of the dining hall, past the soft drink machines, the juice, the cereal, and the frozen yogurt. The horizontal lanes are more narrow, and so most of the movement through the dining hall is along the vertical axis. In the area where the entres are served, there is a central bar where food is served in attractive metal containers, and a side counter where soup and pasta are placed, as well as materials for sandwiches. There are baskets of fresh fruit for the more health-conscious students, and a toaster surrounded by different types of bread and bagels. The salad bar branches off into its own little area, filled with greens and tomatoes and lots of different toppings. There is a grill, where if you are a picky eater, you can have one of a few simple options made to order, or, as I frequently do, get a grilled chicken breast for the top of your salad. The dining hall staff are always wandering around, led by Arthur, the culinary general (and manager) of the Leverett dining hall. He is always asking students how they like their food, calling their attention to new dishes, and ensuring that all runs smoothly.

So much for the general features of this dining hall, now we will look at its features as a social space. Among Harvard dining halls, Leverett is almost unique due to having many smaller tables rather than long tables seating many people. This leads to interesting social interactions, and Leverett being a destination for students who want to eat dinner with just a friend or two. Leverett is a large house (around 400 people) but it seems larger because there are always people around from other houses who want to eat in Leverett due to its more intimate atmosphere. On both edges of the dining hall, there are rectangular eight person tables. At the end of the dining hall farthest from the entrance, there is a raised platform that has mostly these same eight person tables, but also smaller square tables that seat four people. There are a few more of these small tables in the center area of the dining hall, but also large circular tables that seat up to twelve people. There is a distinct pattern to how these tables fill up. First, the eight person tables lining the left hand side of the dining hall will each get a person or two sitting in them, then the same will happen to the tables on the right hand side. This is the side with the soft drink and frozen yogurt machines, so its a little louder and has a little more traffic, so its a less desirable seating area. After that, the tables on the platform at the far end of the hall will begin to fill as well. This leaves the tables in the center of the hall for last. The eight person tables on the sides of the hall will usually fill with two friend groups of two or three people. Each group will sit at one end of the table, leaving a barrier of two seats in between the groups. The same position at the table

is filled by a single person eating at one end of the table, but usually if a person is alone, they will be reading a book or working on a laptop rather than having a social dining experience. This allows each group to get a small (and mostly artificial) sense of privacy. Eavesdropping is almost inevitable, but it is part of the social contract in the Leverett dining hall that everyone tries to ignore conversations not directly pertaining to them. The seats in between these two groups rarely ever get filled, even when the dining hall is most busy; students will often go eat in another dining hall rather than sit in these seats. Students dont want to violate the social regulations that are assumed but never explicitly mentioned. Once each of these tables has its full complement of people, and there are the occasional groups of eight that fill an entire table, or times when two more people are added onto a group of three and they have to sit in the center seats in order to eat with their friends (though these are always the latecomers,) then the tables in the center of the room begin to fill. First, the small square tables, usually with a pair of people working on a problem set, or a homework assignment, and then after these, finally, the large round tables in the center of the room. These tables are left for the people in a hurry. Those who want to work and eat in peace, usually show up before the rush, and get a spot at the end of one of the side tables. With headphones in and a laptop open, no one will bother them. The last few to enter the dining hall, the people who need to get to class in a hurry when theyre already running late, these are the people who are usually forced to sit in the center of the room. One person will sit down at one of these large tables, usually

spreading out books and backpack and papers to make the expanse of table look less empty. Then, another will sit down across from them, perhaps awkwardly making eye contact and nodding before sitting down and studiously ignoring the other person from then on. Perhaps a couple more people may fill some of the empty seats, but very rarely adjoining seatsmost people will keep at least one seat between themselves and the next person. There are, of course, exceptions. The problem with these tables is that with the level of noise in the dining hall, they are too large to converse comfortably across. However, some very large groups do make the attempt, it just normally ends up that people will converse only with the people directly next to them. The fact that these tables prevent a shared group social experience by being so large is the reason that (I believe) they are less desirable than the other tables in the dining hall. Dining at Harvard is an important way for incredibly busy students to spend time together, because everyone has to eat to stay alive, so why not do it in the company of others? It is a sharing that builds community, and makes everyone feel more connected to the rest of the student body, as well as the other individuals who live in the house. The peculiar setup of the Leverett dining hall fosters a very intimate dining experience for the students. Since the students naturally split off into small groups of people to eat meals, this could affect the size of close friend groups in Leverett House (and this would be an interesting follow up experiment to do in all the undergraduate houses.) Usually, the dining hall is a place where students go with their friends. However, people do meet in the dining hall, often because of the large

central tables, in situations when it is too awkward to not make conversation with the person sitting next to you. So these tables do perform a special function and purpose, by often forcing the busiest students to meet others (though usually the people sitting at these large tables do not talk to each other.) It is an interesting aspect of life at Harvard that some people are too busy to make friends. However, the layout of the Leverett dining hall will force them to do just that.