P.B.H. Consultants Answer Questions, Straighten Out Bewildered Newcomers

"Who is the authority on early Assyrian culture?" "Ought I to stay in college?" "Is it all right to take girls to classes at Harvard?" These are among the questions hurled at Schafer Williams '32, associate graduate secretary of Phillips Brooks House who was appointed last fall to serve as a personnel officer.

"Often new students, Freshmen and graduates alike, who are plunged into the unfamiliar environment of Cambridge and Harvard are at a loss to know where to turn for information on persons, course material, and privileges," Williams explained. "We are trying to supply a kind of information which doesn't run in regular channels, but which may make life a little less complicated.

Many students turn up to have simple problems straightened out; many bring in personal problems to be talked over, Williams said. He emphasized the point that "there is an opportunity at Brooks House for members of the college community to get questions, any questions answered."

"Missing Links"

Appointed last fall to serve as "missing links" between the Dean's Office and Hygiene Department and students, Williams and his associate, Norris P. Swett '37, have been working during the fall in an attempt to adjust bewildered students to their environment or vice versa.

As an example of the unnecessary trepidation students feel about approaching higher-ups when in scholastic difficulties, Swett cited the case of a Freshman who was completely at sea in Biology several years ago. In desperation he button-holed the head of the department in the street, and demanded an explanation of a certain phase of the course. The professor took the student up to the laboratory and spent an hour and a half straightening him out.

"I don't advise that practice as a steady diet," Swett cautioned, "but it shows how that traditional Harvard indifference isn't so strong as is commonly believed."