Lewis Releases Five-Year Report on College

After five years on the job as Dean of the College, Harry R. Lewis '68 has written a report about the strengths and shortcomings of his domain, dropping a clue to students about which aspects of College life will likely see changes in the near future.

The dean's 37-page report identifies flaws in the current academic advising system, details the College's problematic lack of space and bemoans the inadequacy of recreational athletic facilities like the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC).

But on the whole, Lewis says, the College is in good shape.

Yet Lewis co-chaired a 1994 committee that put together a similar report, which included along with 44 other specific recommendations the suggestion that Houses should be randomized.

By 1995, Lewis was dean of the College and randomization was well on its way to implementation.

Lewis' latest report provides a rare comprehensive look at which College initiatives the dean will likely pursue in the future.

The Advising Problem

Lewis' report is grounded in statistics--figures gathered from surveys given to graduating seniors each spring.

Surveys of the Classes of 1997 and 1999 specifically targeted at advising issues show that a substantial number of students reported that they did not discuss their academic interests or appropriate courses to take in advising meetings. Many said they were unable to find prompt answers to their academic questions.

"Academic guidance, particularly in several large departments, is at a level below reasonable expectations of both students and faculty," Lewis writes in his report.

And the problem seems to have gotten worse over time.

Only 34 percent of government concentrators in the Class of 1999 said their advising conversations covered appropriate courses to take, down from an already disappointing 53 percent in the Class of 1997.

Other concentrations like economics, sociology and visual and environmental studies showed similar declines.

Certain departments--especially honors-only programs like social studies, history and literature and history and science--earned consistently high marks.

Though his analytical report identifies variations in the quality of academic advice students receive, Lewis says it is ultimately the responsibility of the individual departments to correct their advising problems.

"There is nothing inevitable about poor advising," Lewis wrote in an e-mail. "I am persuaded that a lot has to do with departmental culture, and those cultures can be very deep seeded and hard to change."

Lewis notes that some departments do not have a tradition of having Faculty members advise students and are therefore hesitant to change.

Christopher L. Foote, director of undergraduate studies for the economics department, says that his office is not currently considering the possibility of giving professors formal advising responsibilities, largely because of the department's high student-to-faculty ratio.

Foote says the department hopes to improve student satisfaction within the framework of its current system, in which graduate students serve as advisers.

Lewis says he will continue to lobby for advising by Faculty members, and Undergraduate Council President Paul A. Gusmorino '02 says he's glad Lewis has come out so strongly on the issue.

Gusmorino says the council is considering the idea of producing a guide to concentrations similar to the CUE Guide that rates FAS courses. He hopes to get the College's support for the project.

The concentration guide in the Handbook for Students is not adequate, Gusmorino says. "[The section on the History Department] quotes Cicero, but it doesn't tell you what it's like to be in that department," he says.

The Space We Live and Work In

Lewis has been vocal in his concern about the availability of student group office space, and the matter of space in general--including living quarters--is one target of his report.

"Many organizations store their files and belongings in the dormitory or House rooms of members, or even hold their meetings in students' rooms, often crowding student suites and inconveniencing roommates," Lewis says.

The council, which has long advocated a student center, has in the past used these sorts of acknowledgments by Lewis to make the case for a common space for students.

But Lewis is wary of this argument.

"I have never been supportive of the idea of a 'student center' as it is generally understood--a gathering place with soft couches, pizzas and big screen TVs in the middle of campus," he wrote in an e-mail.

Instead, Lewis argues in the report for a number of remedies, including better use of space in the Houses.

Lewis also suggests that residential space problems in the Houses are serious enough to warrant some changes, though he declines to use the word "overcrowding."

"We would be well-served to recognize that with the present housing stock we should be housing about 100 fewer students in the Houses than we now are," he reports.

Lewis proposes three possible remedies: obtaining 100 more beds in overflow housing areas such as the DeWolfe complex, changing Harvard policies so that 100 more students studied abroad each year or encouraging House masters to convert guest suites to student rooms.

The report does not express a preference for one method over another, though Lewis adds in an e-mail that he thinks encouraging study abroad is a legitimate end in itself and probably a more cost-effective solution to space problems than buying more real estate.

Lewis also comes out strongly in favor of renovations to the MAC, seemingly validating a favorite student complaint about the dilapidated facility.

"Students regularly report that the facilities and equipment available at Harvard are grossly inferior to those available in their public high schools and local YMCAs and YWCAs," Lewis writes in the report.

The Legacy of Lewis

In addition to his musings about advising, space and recreational athletic facilities, Lewis also uses his report to present what he feels has gone right with the College in the past five years.

He cites statistics showing that students' overall satisfaction with the College has remained fairly steady since 1994.

And since the implementation of randomization with the first-year class of 1995-96, Lewis reports that student satisfaction with Harvard's Houses has actually increased.

Lewis suggests that this statistic is vindication that the much-criticized randomization scheme he fought for in his first few months as dean has actually worked out for the best.

"It seems that the problems confronting minority populations, such as African American students or gay and lesbian students, are now appreciated as the problems of each of the Houses, and not only the province of the Houses where those groups clustered in disproportionate numbers," Lewis wrote.

But Gusmorino says he is not sure randomization has been a cure-all for issues of diversity on campus.

"Students who are members of minority groups and want to self-segregate themselves feel they're being used as a means to an end, not as an end in themselves," he says, recalling one student's comment that minority students feel "sprinkled through the Houses like seasoning."

Ultimately, it was Lewis who implemented the hard-sell policy altering decades of Harvard housing tradition, and he acknowledges that randomization will continue to initiate debate for a long time to come.

His report identifies problems most students could list off on their fingers--advising problems, a major College space crunch and a decaying recreational athletic facility. And if the past is any guide, when Lewis puts problem areas in writing, administrative initiatives are soon to follow.