The FDO is located at 6 Prescott Street, right outside Harvard Yard. The House System is the product of the vision of Abbott Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard from 1909 to 1933, and is based on the model of Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Each House accommodates 330-450 students and has a dining hall, common rooms, and facilities for academic, recreational, and cultural activities. As members of its Senior Common Room, each House also has an Allston Burr Senior Tutor, faculty associates, tutors, and affiliates, some of whom reside in the House. A program of seminars, social service activities, plays, concerts, lectures, and special dinners and parties is sponsored by each House.
Houses also field a variety of sports teams that compete in an intramural program.
In effect, each House forms a small academic and social community within the larger context of the College and University. The Undergraduate Housing Office is responsible for assigning students to the residential Houses. The office also provides housing forms for and information about all undergraduate housing, and administers system wide policies. Resident Tutors are graduate students or junior faculty members who live in the upper-class Houses and serve as advisers and intellectual role models for undergraduates. They also take initiative in organizing and participating in cultural and extracurricular activities in the House.