First-Year Advising Often Hit or MIss

If the myth of coming to Harvard is "sink or swim," most first-years might be forgiven for anticipating a life on the ocean floor.

The stereotypes of Harvard advising call to mind a leaky life raft with no oars. First-years are told not to expect any help when they pass through the gates of the Yard.

In fact, a wide range of resources is available to first-years, and their experiences are as diverse as each incoming class. But even students who remember their advisers fondly wish the program had adapted better to their needs.

Some students develop relationships with proctors or non-resident advisers that are of enormous value to them throughout their Harvard years and beyond. Others tell tragic tales of advisers who become part of their problems rather than helping solve them. Nearly everyone has a story to tell.

But out of the anecdotes swapped in Annenberg, a particular pattern emerges. For many first-years, the advising process is an innocuous hurdle; a few others build lasting friendships with their proctors and non-resident advisers. But everyone agrees improvements are in order.

Students and administrators say the system is like a lottery.

A minority of first-years is paired with non-resident advisers who often share their interests. For them, there's the chance to get to know an adult who they wouldn't otherwise meet and who can often bring a valuable perspective.

Most, though, get proctors who must function as jacks of all trades. Many students say their proctors are genuinely helpful and interested in their lives. But for others the relationship can seem forced, an accident of housing.

And having the same person responsible for academic advice and discipline may mean trying to put on two faces.

For both groups, though, Faculty participation is low, leaving many first-years without established connections to professors in their fields.

The result is that some first-years are willing to take advantage of the resources advisers willingly offer. But the system does little to encourage more independent-minded students to reach out.

"You could scrap the entire [system] and I would be fine with it," says Ernesto J. Diaz '03.

The Silent Majority

When first-years arrive in the Yard in September, their advisers are already waiting for them.

Those who are assigned non-resident advisers are paired up by the Freshman Dean's Office based on questionnaires about their academic interests they fill out in the spring. There are about 160 adults who volunteer to be non-resident advisers, from deans to chaplains to psychologists at the Bureau of Study Counsel. Each takes on about three first-year students.

For the rest, proctors are the default. In entryways with less than 22 students, the proctor, usually a graduate student in his or her mid-20s, advises everyone.

Still, most proctors say they offer advice to everyone, even the few students who are not formally in their charge, giving them additional support.

"There's some delay when non-resident advisers see a midterm report," says Canaday proctor Casey L. Due. "But I'm going to have a better idea if someone is failing because I see them every day."

Even though first-years have no choice in the matter, the system rarely breaks down outright.

Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley Nathans says that among the thousands of students she has seen pass through the first-year advising system, she has only had to reassign three. Those types of "persistent disagreements" are rare, she says, largely because "students can always consult someone else."

More often, unsatisfactory relationships end with a whimper. Whether because of indifference to advising in general or a distaste for a particular person, some students use advisers for study card signatures and little else.

Even first-years who say they are happy with their advisers and the advice they have been given thus far don't always believe the program is a crucial addition to their lives.

"The average Harvard student is helped by advising, but it's not necessary," says Adam J. Cohon '03. "The majority of their decisions are not affected by advising. In general, Harvard students are pretty independent."

Two for the Price of One?

Given that attitude of independence, many students are more willing to work with a non-resident adviser specifically chosen to match their interests.

"The assistant deans go to great lengths to match up the academic interests of [first-years] and non-resident advisers," says Associate Dean of Freshman D. E. Lorraine Sterritt.

As Suzanne Repetto, associate director of the Bureau of Study Council, points out, this often proves to be a valuable connection for incoming students.

"Most of the students I've seen are wary of having a non-resident adviser," Repetto says. "But later on they tend to be quite glad they're able to connect with another person in the community."

Having spent many years abroad living in Asia, Repetto herself often requests to work with international students.

Kara A. Shamy '03, a first-year in Straus, believes that her non-resident adviser is a valuable resource in addition to her proctor.

"At first I thought it was a pain that [my adviser] wasn't in the dorm, and I only expected academic advice at first," Shamy says. "But I ended up getting more than that. Some people get short-shrifted in the advising process--I ended up with two great resources, and I think some people don't even get one."

For some first-years, such as Nandini Mukhopadhyay '03, most proctors' youth and recent college memories give them a "closer perspective" than an older non-resident adviser might provide, but other factors give those students with non-resident advisers the advantage.

"The fact is I've never discussed personal issues [with my proctor], because I'm afraid it would get me in trouble, even though he's a great guy," Mukhopadhyay says. "Social life involves alcohol, which could potentially get you in trouble. Since [your proctor is] also your academic adviser, you don't want to influence their opinion of you."

"People with non-resident advisers have an advantage, as long as it's someone they feel like they can talk to," she adds.

But others say their proctors are enough for their academic needs. For them, having a residential adviser allows them to just drop by.

By contrast, most students meet with their non-resident advisers only occasionally, some as few as twice a semester.

Melissa A. Tanner '03 says having a non-resident adviser is "superfluous."

"It's kind of a hassle to set up appointments and make meetings," she says.

Many Students, One Proctor

Proctors must usually take responsibility for 20 or more advisees, in addition to the informal advising they provide other students.

But Due says the number of students she advises does not pose a problem.

"[Non-resident advisers] volunteer to do this, so they obviously think advising is an important thing to do," she says, "but they have Faculty meetings and commitments all the time. We live here, so our time is more flexible--we can see students at 7:30 in the morning and 11:30 at night."

But not everyone agrees.

Room 13 Co-Director Ellen Schneider '01 believes proctors have too much on their plates, forcing first-years to look elsewhere for advice or support.

"[First-years] just don't really understand where they are and what they're doing," Schneider says. "They really look to their advisers to help them, and from my experience they just don't get that reinforcement or encouragement, or any sort of direction really. In terms of proctor advising, they have so many kids to deal with that it's hard spending a lot of time on any one student."

Other colleges get around the problem of giving residential proctors additional advising duties by assigning non-resident advisers to all incoming students and by assigning fewer students per adviser.

At Stanford, first-years are assigned to faculty, staff or graduate students who each advise six to eight students, writes Lori S. White, head of the Stanford Undergraduate Advising Center, in an e-mail message.

In addition to these advisers, incoming Stanford first-years are also paired with upperclass peer advisers who can relate more closely to student concerns.

Students at Brown, on the other hand, participate in a curricular advising program, in which faculty members offer courses to first-years whom they will also advise, says Brown Associate Dean of the College Joyce Reed. Additionally, each student is assigned an upperclass "Meickeljohn" adviser who can provide more up-to-date academic advice.

A Key to the Ivory Tower

The Stanford and Brown systems attempt to address what many Harvard first-years say is their main complaint about the system: lack of Faculty involvement.

Only those first-years assigned non-resident advisers are likely to find they share an academic interest with their adviser, and even among non-resident advisers, the majority are not faculty members.

Incoming first-years arrive on campus with the specter of choosing a concentration in seven months already beginning to haunt them.

"I guess at this point in our lives we're supposed to make decisions on our own," says Michael L. Blomquist '03, a prospective Environmental Science and Public Policy concentrator. "When I needed advice on courses I asked upperclassmen or teammates who I felt could give better advice and were more similar to me than my adviser. I know of one of my friends who has a non-resident adviser who has nothing to do with academia, which I find kind of amusing."

Shamy suggests that one potential solution to the dearth of faculty advising for first-years might be "having a [graduate] student adviser who's in a concentration that you're interested in."

"Everyone gets a fair shot with the concentration advising system, [whereas] it's sort of random among [first-years]," she says. "It's as if they don't know what to do with them."

Nathans says that she "worries a great deal" about the difficulty first-years have in connecting with Faculty in departments of interest

The notion that first-years don't need Faculty interaction is "a demeaning idea," Nathans says. "Faculty should not slough off younger students."

Like Brown and Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania tries to connect first-years with faculty. Dianne D. Frey, director of academic advising at Penn, says that the university recently changed its advising system for incoming students to improve faculty involvement.

Faculty members are given a $1,500 research stipend to compensate them for their involvement in the program.

In addition, they are now linked with students for their first two years, until they are "handed off" to their major. Moreover, Frey says that fewer assistant professors will be involved in the program and that no non-academic university affiliates will participate.

"We want some control over the advice they're giving," she says.

But proctors at Harvard say that while they may not be versed in students' prospective fields, they can usually act as go-betweens to those with the needed expertise.

"I only know one field among many others," says Allison Guagliardo '96, a proctor in Canaday and a student at Harvard Law School. "Our role, however, is to know where to find the answer, but not necessarily to know the answer itself. There are many resources here, and the Freshman Dean's Office is very good at making sure we know what they are."

Where Prefects Step In

One such possible resource is upperclass prefects. Most entryways have two or three older students to serve as scouts in the Harvard wilderness.

Blomquist says that his prefects were able to provide academic help in some cases where his proctor could not.

"My prefects helped me find people that were in my concentration, which was very helpful, and who could steer me in the right direction," he says.

In addition to providing help with course selection, Tanner says that she's more comfortable approaching her prefects with a variety of concerns.

"[Prefects] serve a role that proctors can't really serve, because they're in a disciplinary position," Tanner says. "I would be more likely to go to a prefect with a non-academic issue than my proctor."

As officers of the University, proctors are required to report disciplinary infractions by students in virtually all cases. Yet according to Noah S. Selsby '95, a proctor in Thayer, this obligation does not have to constrain the proctor/proctee relationship.

"Even in the disciplinary role, I've always let students know that I'm not out to get them, and that I don't take pleasure in my disciplinary role," he says.

When it comes to first-years who've had too much to drink, Selsby is careful to point out that students are not subject to disciplinary action in situations involving alcohol where a student's health is in question.

Yet even given that prefects are not in a disciplinary position like proctors, some students feel they are an inadequate remedy for the residential isolation that comes with life in the Yard.

"I do feel isolated," says Stephen M. Davis '03, a Mower resident. "I rarely see upperclassmen. I rarely talk to them. I feel almost as if I'm going to a new college next year, because so much will be changing in terms of my social environment and whatnot."

"The prefect program is an interesting, but stop-gap measure," he adds. "[My prefects] are certainly enthusiastic, but I don't really feel that they've connected me to upperclass life."