Study Counsel

A student with a problem at this large and sometimes inpersonal university often feels relatively alone. But depending on how he views his concern, a student can choose from as many as twenty College officers or agencies available to assist him.

Among these, the Bureau of Study Counsel stands closest to the central task of getting an education. Each year the Bureau serves nearly a thousand undergraduates by teaching seped reading and mathematics refresher courses, and by providing tutors and counselors. In addition, the Bureau refers some students to other appropriate agencies, and meets regularly for six weeks each year to discuss anonymous counseling records with other advisors. From such collaboration hopefully comes wiser and more insightful ways of advising.

But though the Bureau performs these several functions, the core of its operation is counseling. Upwards of six hundred students appear yearly--about half on their own initiative and half referred by other advisors--to seek counsel on a myriad of academic and more intimate emotional problems. The Bureau sets no rigid limits on what topics it will discuss, since a student's academic success often depends as much on his personal relations with family or girl friend as in his intrinsic ability or interest in studying.

Surprisingly, the kinds of students seeking advice, far from being mostly in academic trouble, tend to distribute themselves proportionately in rank groupings, including a number of students with four solid A's.

Most of the regular counselors are sociologists or psychologists with a great deal of experience of listening to students' problems. In fact, active listening is probably the chief function of the counselor. Students attending the hour-long sessions hoping to be spoon-fed from a little package of Wisdom to tide them throught the week are liable to be disappointed. Counselors offer no pat answers to such questions as "How can I keep up in my studies?" simply because there aren't any.

Rather, by letting the student give vent to his own vague but gnawing concerns, the counselor helps him organize his feelings in a coherent pattern that both he and the counselor can comprehend. Then, counselor and student together can focus on the newly perceived problems to search for insights and solutions. Ideally, this collabortive effort develops in the student a capacity for productive self understanding and relieves him of a prolonged dependence upon the Bureau.

In spite of its extensive use by students, the Bureau surrounds itself with anonymity. William G. Perry, the director of thet Bureau, prefers not to expand but to work quietly with only those students who somehow find their way to his door. The problem is that when the demolition crews forced the Bureau to move from its relative obscurity on the fifth floor of rickety old Holyoke House to the pleasant white building on 5 Linden Street, more people began finding the door. Already the Bureau's staff of seven part-time counselors are often working full time including week-ends to handle the influx of students. And if the present rate of eighty per cent increased student use over the last five years continues, the Bureau, at its present size, faces serious future conditions of overwork.

Expansion, however, is not a desirable solution. At the present, the Bureau is a refuge of intimacy amidst an increasingly impersonal University complex. To lose the Bureau's personal touch both within its close knit organization and with the other nineteen or so advisory bodies would be to lose much of its strength.

In the future the Bureau will do better to work with a few students effectively and refer some to other advisory agencies, rather than deal with many students less effectively. By thus limiting the size of its operation, the Bureau will have to formulate and report generalized knowledge about students' academic experiences to aid advisors and faculty at large. Hopefully, by the modest addition of just one more counselor next year, the Bureau will be able to continue its major role of student assistance in the quiet obscurity it thrives upon.