Harvard Explained

How are Harvard e-mail addresses assigned?

Its pretty logical, really. Incoming freshmen and transfer students are given email addresses based on a computer algorithm that allows a maximum of eight characters per address. If a students last name is unique, he gets up to eight of its letters for an address. When duplicates arise, the first letter of the first name, and sometimes the middle intial, is put in front. If even that doesnt work, numbers are added to the end. Heres where Harvard gets aesthetic on us: if the eighth letter of the students last name is a vowel, the last letter gets cut off and the first letter of his first name fills in at the front. The reason? Vowel endings look funny. The only way Harvard will change an email address is if a students name was inaccurately recorded, if a student legally changes his or her name, or if the username is obscene.

Harvard Explained thanks the Harvard Computer Help Desk.

What is the meaning of the word preceptor?

Frankly, says Gordon C. Harvey, Director of the Expository Writing Program, I dont have the faintest idea what preceptor means. Harvey, contemplating the words Latin root, posits that it might refer to hitting people over the head with a pointed stick. Internal Expository angst aside, he explains that preceptor falls under a different category at Harvard than lecturer. Preceptors teach skill-based subjects such as math, music and language. They, according to Harvey, are in a slightly differently category than people who teach content-based curriculum, such as lecturers in History and Literature. The worlds authority on words, the Oxford English Dictionary, states in its infinite wisdom that a preceptor is one who instructs; a teacher, instructor, tutor. The question, then, is where to draw the line between skill and content. Harvey leaves that decision to the Dean.