Harvard, Other Ivies, Address Advising

In order to get her study card signed by a faculty adviser, Shayna L. Strom, a junior at Yale University, had to bike down to Yale Medical School, drop it off with her adviser's secretary, and hope her form would eventually be signed by an adviser she had never seen.

Though this is an extreme example, stories like Strom's reflect an Ivy League-wide problem. The struggle to adequately advise students is common in selective schools--and it's a problem that Harvard students and administrators mutually acknowledge.

With the recent release of his five-year report, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 publicly recognized problems with advising in the College.

Lewis's concerns come from data collected by questionnaires given to graduating seniors. What he found was less than encouraging.

"Academic guidance, particularly in several large departments, is at a level below the reasonable expectations of both students and faculty," Lewis writes.

Further, many students have reported a disappointment with the usefulness of their first-year advisers, saying that advisers often have little knowledge of the students' fields of interest.

"In spite of vigorous efforts, there are more failures on both sides than we would like: departments barely able to manage concentrators who have already committed to them and are therefore less forthcoming with advice for freshmen, and freshmen reluctant to venture out to make inquiries of departments when they barely know what questions to ask," Lewis writes.

Responding to Lewis's report, as well as a general consensus among Harvard students and Faculty that advising needs work, the Committee on Undergraduate Education recently sent out a letter to freshmen giving tips on how to get questions answered.

One thing is for sure: Harvard is not alone. Advising problems seem to be a general trend among selective schools. Groups that compare data from these schools, such as the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE), confirm that academic advising needs work.

Exploring this trend, The Crimson examined the advising structures of two other prominent schools in a search for the perfect system.

Bulldog, Bulldog, Bow Wow Wow

Yale students say advising is a luck-of-the-draw system. Highly dependent on student initiative, Yale's system seems to lack a reliable advising structure in the first and second years, according to both students and administrators.

After two years of spotty, hit-or-miss advising, however, juniors at Yale say they find solace in a strong concentration advising system.

Yale first-year students, much like Harvard's, are immediately assigned "freshmen counselors," two undergraduate resident advisers.

"Our basic responsibility is to be aware of what's going on with freshmen," Tobin M. Abraham, a freshmen counselor in Yale's Calhoun College said. "We're also here to make sure things are okay with them, day-to-day roommate issues and such."

Like in Harvard's prefect program, these counselors are not technically academic advisers, but, also like Harvard's prefect program, freshmen counselors are exactly where many first-years get their academic advising.

It's an innovation that seems to work well. Because the counselors live with their advisees, first-year students say they find the freshman--counselor relationship easier and often more informative.

"People come to them like older siblings," Strom said.

But like any advising system, Yale's structure is only as good as its counselors.

"In terms of freshman counselors, it's a pretty competitive process to get to be a counselor. Some are really good, but others are not," said Sarah M. Aviel, a Yale junior.

Freshman counselors are not the only source of advice and support for first-years.

In addition to the counselors, Yale first-year students are assigned a member of the faculty or administration for more involved, non-resident academic advising.

"The big flaw is that advisers freshman year range from unhelpful to utterly useless," Abraham says.

Other students say they agree the quality of Yale's advising system is not consistent.

"The advising here is inadequate, but not uniformly. There are definitely gaping holes all over the place and nothing to make sure there aren't these holes," Aviel said.

Associate Dean of Yale College Penelope Laurans is currently attempting new ways of reaching out to students.

Laurans, of Yale's Jonathan Edwards College, meets with her faculty advisers for dinner every year to review what lives of first-year students are like.

After the dinner, all first-year students are invited to a two-hour advising dinner, giving students a chance to meet their advisers in a more informal setting.

"Frankly I think that first-year advising works quite well here," Laurans says. "Freshman year is a year where people are always going to face challenges and make mistakes. It's part of what freshman year is."

Yale is currently exploring other options. Instead of having a large number of faculty advisers working for a minimal amount of time, Laurans says Yale is attempting to select only a handful of advisers who will devote a maximum amount of time with many students, increasing the workload for only a few good advisers.

After the first year, however, Yale students leave their freshmen counselors behind but have not yet chosen their majors. Their only remain support is an arbitrarily assigned faculty adviser.

"The second year is when people can slip through the cracks," Laurans says.

A dinner giving sophomores a chance to meet with their adviser is arranged, but is not mandatory. The idea is more of a fireside chat, says Laurans.

But where Yale's advising falls short in the first and second years, it seems to compensate in departmental advising. Once students finally select their major in their third year, there are few complaints for those who take initiative.

"The general sense is that people are very happy with advising in their major once they reach junior year. Our studies show that student satisfaction is quite high," Laurans says.

But still, faculty major advisers are hit or miss, and unless students take steps to acquire a faculty adviser they know, major advising can be disappointing.

"Concentration advising is totally great. It has a lot to do with the strength of your relationship with a faculty member," Strom says.

Advising vs. Teaching

Though it excels in first-year advising, Brown seems to have a different problem than Yale--a decline instead of an increase advising quality through the years.

Brown's advising begins before students even enter the college. The summer before their first year, students are given the opportunity to take a class which combines advising and teaching, called Curricular Advising Program, or CAP classes.

The main feature of a CAP course is that its instructor volunteers to be a first-year advisers. These classes are available in a wide range of departments.

Brown's unique approach has many advantages; the professor/adviser is given a chance to see his or her advisee in a class context, and the student gets a chance to see his or her adviser on a regular basis.

Consequently, the system is also a natural solution to matching adviser with student based on interest.

The idea may seem flawless, but Brown's Associate Dean Robert A. Shaw, who has directed the school's advising for seven years, also sees some disadvantages.

"Advising gets a lot of complaints at Brown as well," he says.

In particular, he says professors often feel uncomfortable being both teacher and adviser. They are placed in the awkward position of helping as well as evaluating.

Further, many students realize upon entering the college that they have chosen the wrong course. They are forced to select classes in the summer and find later on that they have passed up more interesting courses.

On the whole, however, Shaw says that the advantages outweigh any disadvantages their system might have. About three quarters of first-year students enroll in CAP classes.

In addition, students are given peer advisers, much like Harvard's prefect program. And the peer advisers are linked with the faculty advisers.

"They get terrifically positive reviews," Shaw says. "Often they get higher reviews than the faculty advisers."

As for second-year students at Brown, they seem to share the same difficulties with Yale students. They too postpone selecting a concentration until junior year. This creates a year of advising slump, where students are not yet affiliated with a department and have lost peer advisers.

And once students obtain their concentration adviser, Brown students encounter spotty and variable advising, largely dependent on what concentration they chose to pursue.

"The key to the process of concentration advising is attention," Shaw says. "Smaller departments have a better time advising, as one would expect. Larger departments have a harder time. Departments must take advising as a particular responsibility."

"It's pretty casual," Zina A. Miller, a Brown junior said. "I feel like some people have amazing relationships and others don't even have one. Brown's advising system is very go-out-and-get-it."

And Brown's system has not gone unnoticed. In the report provided by COFHE, Brown students seem to be more satisfied with advising than most other selective institutions.

In the coming years, Brown is planning on changing their wording when describing advising at the college. To emphasize the student's necessarily active role in advising, Brown will term their system an "Advising Partnership."

Students generally agree with this philosophy.

"Brown is whatever you make it. You can get good advising but it takes a lot of work to get it," Daniel J. Edinberg, a Brown junior, said. "If you want a great adviser, you have to ask people. You have to find it."

So What Now?

No single school seems to have the perfect system. Though Brown, Harvard and Yale all offer plausible solutions to the advising problem, each structure comes with its own set of difficulties.

For example, though Brown comes out near the top of the COFHE evaluation, internal Brown surveys show advising near the bottom of things with which students are satisfied.

"Advising comes just above food service," Shaw jokes.

Shaw readily admits that aspects of their advising system were inspired by ideas at Harvard, such as the freshmen seminar program.

At the University of Pennsylvania, where the advising department is separate from the faculty and administration.

As it stands, Lewis' call to improve advising is not going unanswered. Dean of Undergraduate Studies Susan G. Pedersen '82 and Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley-Nathans are currently trying to recruit more faculty to the Board of Freshmen advisers and are working with specific concentrations to develop better advising systems.