260 Students Will Advise Freshmen

A new program to provide freshmen with upperclass advisers will begin next week with 260 upperclassmen and 1200 freshmen participating, an organizer of the program said yesterday.

About 400 unpperclassmen applied last year to be guides to freshmen for Students Helping Students (SHS), Arthur C. Kyriazis '80 said. SHS organizers chose 260 of the applicants to start this fall.

At registration last week, 150 more upperclassmen signed up to be replacements if guides drop out during the school year.

SHS will assign each guide to about six freshmen interested in the guide's field of concentration. The guide will counsel them on an informal basis and plan meetings with Faculty members from his area of concentration.

Seal of Approval

SHS must still obtain approval by the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL), but Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, has tentatively approved the group's charter, Kyriazis said.

Henry C. Moses, dean of freshmen, said last night he agreed over the summer to provide funds from the freshman dean's office for some of the expenses of the program.

Moses will meet with the student guides next week to familiarize them with University counseling resources available to them and their advisees. After the meeting, upperclassmen will begin contacting freshmen assigned to them.

The SHS guides will not be academic advisers because each freshman already has a graduate student or administrator to give advice on courses, Moses said.

The SHS guides will not be academic advisers because each freshman already has a graduate student or administrator to give advice on courses, Moses said. "We don't want students doing what they are not trained to do," Moses added.

Kyriazis said Moses wants the guides to be "big brothers" and not academic counselors because Moses "thinks upperclassmen don't give adequate academic advice."

SHS members will choose a 15-member student board soon to oversee the guides, evaluate the program, and pick the new guides for next year, Kyriazis said.

Next year upperclassmen will contact their advisees earlier because SHS will choose guides for 1979-80 this spring and send them the names and addresses of their freshman advisees over the summer.

The SHS program is similar to a two-year-old program at the University of Pennsylvania. Leonard H. Ginsburg, a Penn sophomore and organizer of the program there, helped Kyriazis to begin the program at Harvard.

John R. Marquand, assistant dean of the College, Harry W. Orf, senior tutor of Mather House, and Paul A. Walters, assistant director and chief of the mental health service, are serving as Faculty sponsors to SHS providing guidance and assistance.