Big Brother

To the Editors of the Crimson:

I want to express my enthusiasm for the new program of having 260 upperclassmen advisors for freshmen in the Yard. I think it's wonderful that Harvard finally has a formal setting for freshmen to get advice from other students.

Only a few short years ago, some 400 unfortunate students not assigned to live in the Yard had to rely for advice on the haphazard collection of sophmores, juniors and seniors with whom they lived, who represented a variety of fields and a host of different approaches to the "Harvard experience." Freshmen had to contend with a torrent of unsolicited advice in late-night bull sessions in the hallways, over football matches and at meals taken in a common dining facility. At the time, many of us wrongly believed that there was some benefit to freshmen from being routinely associated with this diverse group of upperclasspersons.

Now, however, we see the obvious wisdom of the new program, in which freshmen never have to leave the Yard except for classes, and in which each freshman, along with five or six of his or her peers, will be assigned to an upperclass adviser. No longer will freshmen be confronted by a confusing diversity of opinions about which concentrations, classes, instructors, and extra curricular activities are most interesting, fun, and profitable--each will get one straight story from his or her assigned adviser.

I couldn't agree more with Dean Moses that the upperclass advisers should not be academic counselors, since each freshman has already been assigned an academic adviser, and "we don't want students doing what they aren't trained to do." My own freshman proctor was a Yalie who had never taken a Harvard course, and who, as you might imagine, was enormously helpful to me in sorting out the subtleties of the undergraduate experience at Harvard. The absurdity of thinking that upperclass students who had taken the courses here recently might have any real knowledge about what they learned in them is obvious, although it escaped many of us until now.

The reference to upperclass adviser Arthur C. Kyrianzis '80 as "big brothers" has illuminated two long-standing errors in the informal programs once run by three undergraduate houses that had freshmen. First, we naively referred to our programs directly as "Big Sibling" programs, rather than cleverly divising a more formal cover title like "Students Helping Students." Second, we explicitly recognized that advisers might be of either sex by calling them "big brothers and sisters." Our mistakes and obvious lack of professionalism have now been made clear.

Finally, I think it is especially important to have the upperclass advisers be concentrators in the field of interest of freshmen assigned to them. When I was a freshman, most of my peers weren't sure what careers they wanted to pursue, if any. Many of them have changed their minds several times since, and some of them still don't know. Freshmen should certainly be encouraged to resolve these questions immediately and with finality.

Let me say once again how pleased I am that we are moving toward a new era of formality in our transfer of accumulated wisdom from the upperclassmen to freshmen. This progress is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Harvard community. Herman B. Leonard   Currier House