Senior Common Room
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The term Senior Common Room (abbreviated SCR) originated at the colleges of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where it has been in long-standing use. It is now used at a variety of tertiary educational institutions in the Anglophone world. The term generally designates both the permanent academic staff and the room in which they gather socially. It stands in contrast to the Junior Common Room, for undergraduates (and at certain institutions postgraduate students as well), and the Middle Common Room, for postgraduate students (and at certain institutions undergraduates of more than three years' standing). At the University of Cambridge "Combination" is used instead of "Common".
At Oxford and Cambridge, membership of the Senior Common Room of a college may technically refer to the Fellows, often together with the Head of House. (At All Souls College, Oxford, for example, the Warden is in theory the Fellows' guest in the Common Room, which, incidentally, does not require the qualification "Senior", since all members of the college are Fellows).
At each of the undergraduate Houses of Harvard University, the "Senior Common Room" encompasses all faculty members and graduate students (designated "tutors") resident at or affiliated with the House. Each house also has a living room known as the "Senior Common Room," or SCR, which is for the exclusive use of members of the SCR. This is in contrast to a "Junior Common Room," or JCR, which is generally available for all undergraduates to use.
In wider usage, in particular within an undergraduate college, the Senior Common Room consists of the academic officers who hold a degree above the undergraduate degree. The term can refer to both actual persons (the scholars/faculty) and the room where they occasionally hold meetings. Always, this consists of any Professors, Associate Professors, Assistant Professors, Preceptors, Lecturers, and Fellows who hold a Doctoral degree or a Professional Degree. In many cases it also consists of the Tutors and Teaching Fellows (TFs) or Teaching Assistants (TAs) who hold a Master's Degree and who teach undergraduates.
