Deans Offer Hope to Prefects

Following negative student reaction to news that the Prefect Program would be cancelled, College administrators met with prefect board members last night to reassure them that certain components of the freshmen-focused organization may be retained.

Monique Rinere, the new associate dean of advising programs, said Monday afternoon that the Prefect Program would no longer exist in its present form but would be “morphed into something else.” But at a meeting yesterday with Prefect Program board members, Rinere said the fate of the program would not be decided until the soon-to-be-formed Student Advisory Board (SAB) recommends reforms this spring.

“We will preserve all aspects of the Prefect Program that the SAB decides should be retained,” she wrote in an e-mail last night.

But a prefect board member, Haining Gouinlock ’07, said that although the situation appears optimistic, the administration is not bound to follow the board’s recommendations.

“I know that the [SAB] is an advisory board—not an executive board,” Gouinlock said.

The SAB will be composed of 15 to 25 undergraduates selected by Rinere in consultation with the Student Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council. All nine members of the prefect board invited by Rinere have agreed to join.

The Prefect Board, Freshman Deans Office, and Advising Programs Office will form a partnership to create the new peer advising program that will ultimately replace the current prefect system, Rinere wrote yesterday.

Gouinlock said that at a meeting with the prefect board Sunday night, Rinere had originally told those in attendance that the program was going to be disbanded because of a decision passed down by top members of the College administration.

The prefect board wrote in an e-mail to prefects, proctors, and some freshmen yesterday morning that “the presentation on Sunday night engendered in us serious concerns about the future of the freshman experience at Harvard.”

Shaan K. Hathiramani ’08, a prefect, said the outcry resulting from the announcement of the 20-year-old program’s dissolution shows that many undergraduates at the College care deeply about its function.

“I was very happy to hear that the administration is so committed to the prefect program,” he said. “We are working to promote the goals and the vision of the prefect program coupled with the long overdue responsibility of academic advising.”

Students started an online petition, after yesterday’s announcement, to rally support for the program. It stated: “Even if the College wishes to create a Peer Advising program, its purposes need not be mutually exclusive with those of the Prefect Program.”

During yesterday’s meeting, Deputy Dean of the College Patricia O’Brien said that the College is committed to a program that is in the best interests of the freshmen, but she is not certain that the new system would be organized by entryways, according to Gouinlock, who attended the meeting.

“All of us will be pushing really hard for residentially-based advising,” Gouinlock said.

In addition to Rinere and O’Brien, Dean of Freshmen Thomas Dingman, Assistant Dean for Academic Planning Inge-Lise Ameer, and Resident Dean of Freshmen James N. Mancall also attended the dinner meeting with prefect board members.

“[College administrators] are being more conciliatory now—at least in attitude,” Gouinlock said.



—Staff writer Ying Wang can be reached at yingwang@fas.harvard.edu.