Advising System Needs Overhaul

We would like to express our support for the recent efforts of Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 to improve the College's advising system. He has reinstated the dormant Committee on Advising and Counseling, for reasons which were outlined in the 1994 Report on the Structure of Harvard College.

The report, which was authored by Lewis and Administrative Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Nancy L. Maull, advocated "the better integration of academic departments and their faculty into the process of advising freshmen, and the more effective use of House tutors for non-concentration advising."

Good academic advising is long overdue at Harvard. Ideally, every first-year should meet frequently with a faculty member in their prospective field of study, and should then be reassigned (if necessary) once he or she chooses a concentration, so that students are never stuck with faculty advisers who know nothing about their academic interests. Additionally, good advising requires that the faculty have at least a cursory knowledge of students' requirements; the Committee on Advising and Counseling will somehow have to ensure that advisors are knowledgeable as well as available.

We're a bit more concerned about the decision to increase the role of House tutors in ensuring students' emotional well being. While this may provide some small benefit, the tutors as a whole are young, untrained in counseling and simply not qualified to speak to the type of difficulties that undergraduates may harbor. Any effective solution to the lack of psychological advising on campus has to involve the extension of the professional services of University Health Services.

In general, the time is certainly ripe to review the amount of support students receive on Harvard's campus. However, the fact that Lewis has revived this committee in as of itself is insignificant. In the past, particularly in the case of Phillips Brooks House, he has shown complete disregard for the advisory committees. It is our hope that in this case he listens to the committees which will be made up of students and faculty.