Suit Just What Harvard Needs

To the editors:

Here's hoping the family of Trang Phuong Ho wins its lawsuit against the University. Few organizations in the world respond better to economic incentives than Harvard, and if the University could use some prodding in any one direction, it is in its attitude toward providing its students with a safety net of advising staff.

While we will never know if Harvard's advising system was responsible for or even could have prevented the murder-suicide, a victory by the Ho family would no doubt be perceived as a condemnation of Harvard's system.

Unfortunately, most Harvard students don't need a judge or jury to tell us what we quickly learned upon arrival. Shoddy advising starts with apathetic and out-of-touch first-year proctors, continues with large departments that don't assign advisers and comes to a head with Houses that don't even bother to replace already apathetic and mismatched advisers who have quit without warning. With the murder-suicide, the Harvard community realized amid tragedy that failure to provide adequate advising can have disastrous consequences--not just for those who "slipped through the cracks," but for their roommates, housemates and indeed everyone associated with the University. How sad that the emotional and academic health of its students only assumes center stage with the University at times of grave tragedy.

Perhaps a little pressure on its wallet would induce the University to think twice about dismissing the essentials of advising and counseling. DAVID W. FOSTER '00   Feb. 19, 1998