Special Counseling Ordered For Bedeviled Sophomore

Slumping sophomores will get special help from the University this year. Archie Epps, assistant dean of the College, has asked Masters, Senior Tutors and tutors to take action to aid second-year students in ending a "distressful amount of floundering."

In a letter authorized by Dean Monro, Epps has suggested that Senior Tutors confer in the near future with all sophomores who were on probation during their freshman year.

In a further effort to open channels of counsel for sophomores, the assistant dean will encourage tutors to place more emphasis on their role as advisors. Many Faculty members have been inadequately concerned with undergraduates as human beings, Epps said yesterday.

Epps is also preparing an essay to send to all sophomores, warning them of problems which may confront them and advising them to seek help if they need it.

The second-year class anually has the highest percentage of drop-outs and unsatisfactory records in the College, and the lowest percentage of students on the Dean's List. In July, the University recognized the problem and appointed Epps to work toward its solution.

"Bedeviled Sophomores"

The trouble, according to Epps, occours because, in a year beset by complex problems and important decisions, the "bedeviled sophomore" loses the advisors, counselors and proctors who were available in his freshman year.

The counseling system that a sophomore leaves behind includes the office of F. Skiddy von Stade '38, dean of freshman, who has five assistant deans; the Board of Freshman Advisors, which has proctors, deans and several professors all acting as advisors to individual freshmen; and the proctors in his own freshman dorms.

"Freshman year is bewildering, but the main issue is fairly simple--survival. Sophomore issues are much more complex and urgent. For instance, you have to choose a field of concentration which seems to close many career opportunities," Epps said.

Discussion Hindered

An obstacle to more sophomore-teacher discussion is the distaste undergraduates feel for seeking advice, according to Epps.

"The student must believe that an individual can seek help," he said. "We must balance the tradition of Harvard individualism with an enlightened, non-paternal concern for the undergraduate."

"The problem," he continued, "is to get the sophomore talking and to listen patiently and supportively. . . . If grownups will only shut up and listen, the sophomore will ultimately make good sense to himself."