A Sticky Situation

Last month, one undergraduate sent in her application to the prestigious Fulbright Program as a junior. At least, that’s what her transcript said. Truth be told, Denise L. Delaney ’08 isn’t a precocious junior, but rather a disgruntled senior. Returning from a spring semester abroad in Colombia, Delaney was surprised with a host of unnecessarily complicated problems— and she wasn’t alone.

Encouraging study abroad at Harvard was a primary initiative of former University President Lawrence H. Summers. Despite his relatively short tenure, his legacy remains to this day. This fall, Harvard’s Office of International Programs (OIP) added six term-time study abroad programs, according to an old Crimson article. The OIP’s efforts to expand offerings for its participants have paid off. The number of students studying abroad in the past six years has more than doubled, according to the OIP, In 2001, only 106 students studied abroad for either a semester or a full year. Last year, 246 students went abroad during the term.

However, the office has lacked the structural changes to accommodate this growth in volume.

“I was a little surprised to find that some of the things that were issues in 1997 are still around today,” says Catherine H. Winnie, who worked as a study abroad advisor with the Office of Career Services (OCS) in the 1990s and returned this February as director of the OIP.

Upon their return to campus this fall, many seniors who went abroad their junior year faced some unpleasant surprises. Most of these issues concerned the transfer of credits, a problem created by the lack of communication between the different offices involved.

Transcripts from study abroad are processed at the OIP and then sent to the Registrar’s office, where they officially become part of a student’s record. This back-and-forth means students have to deal with two bureaucratic processes. Even worse, students applying for fellowships or participating in the recruiting process must also coordinate with OCS.

“I felt I was put in the middle of offices that weren’t communicating with each other,” says Delaney. She was further frustrated by OCS’s unsympathetic response to the complications with her Fulbright application. “OCS was mad at me because nothing looked right [on my application],” Delaney recalls.

But the consequences of not receiving senior standing are not limited to those looking to land a fellowship or job.

Abby E. Feuer ’08 received confirmation in July that the OIP had received her transcript from Madrid, Spain. Yet, the fficial records still had her listed as a junior. Hoping to run for Class Marshal, Feuer was especially distraught.

“You come back, think you are fine, but then you have to run around to make sure you are a senior,” Feuer says, “This all should be done before we get back to school.”

Besides Class Marshall information, important material that study abroad seniors missed included senior-specific notices about diploma registration and yearbook photo sittings.

“The OIP started forwarding e-mails we were missing, but only after people complained,” Feuer says. Feuer received the information about Class Marshall elections the day the application was due.

Jayne F. Wolfson ’08 tried to be proactive in an effort to get on the senior mailing lists. However, it was a lot harder than she had anticipated.

“I took things into my own hands,” says Wolfson, “but nobody could figure out where all of these e-mails were coming from.”

There are several different offices that contact seniors via e-mail, and so seniors looking to fix the problem had to contact multiple people and offices.

“The problem is that all those people that want to contact seniors make their lists at different times, but they aren’t complete until the students who studied abroad are back,” says Winnie.

Again, the general lack of centralization in the process has not only become a nuisance for study abroad alumni, but could potentially ward away future study abroad applicants.

“I don’t know whose fault it is, honestly,” Feuer admits, “They need to centralize the process if they really want to encourage study abroad and make both sides of the process enjoyable.”

In addition to an absence of coordination, the surprise factor makes the process all the more annoying.

“It wasn’t the biggest deal in the world, but it was something I had to deal with,” Wolfson admits, “The reason it was such a pain was because I didn’t expect it.”

“Some warning upon return that we would have to deal with x, y, z would be helpful,” Delaney adds.

The OIP has stepped up its efforts to aid returning students by providing some forewarning. Most of the efforts are related to new online features that will offer a checklist and reminders to students. Such measures would provide “a proactive way to tell seniors the ten things they might have missed if they haven’t been told,” Winnie says.

The simplicity of such solutions emphasizes one of the most frustrating aspects of the situation: ultimately, there are trivial problems with unnecessarily complicated consequences.

“The number [of students studying abroad] is not in the thousands,” Winnie admits, “But that is a lot of people who could have been Class Marshal.”