Gusmorino Calls for Guide to Concentrations

Following through on a campaign promise, Undergraduate Council President Paul A. Gusmorino '02 presented his idea for a guide to concentrations to the College's Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) yesterday.

Members of the committee, who publish the popular CUE guide to courses, responded warmly to the idea, which Gusmorino said would provide quick answers to students' basic concerns about concentrations.

The online guide would include information on choosing a concentration, links to the CUE Guide, a calendar of important dates, comments from students in each department and possible plans of study for concentrators. The guide would be geared to first-years trying to pick a concentration, although it would include resources--like professors' office hours--for students already in the department.

Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pederson '82 said her office saw the idea as "probably do-able in some form."

"[The guide is] something that should exist already," she said.

Pederson said a possible staffing increase in the undergraduate education office would alleviate much of the burden the new guide would place on the office.

Head tutors from several concentrations who attended the meeting responded favorably overall, although they said they had some reservations that the site would drain their resources away from teaching and meeting with students.

Gusmorino's proposal includes an online discussion forum for each concentration where tutors would answer student questions and maintain a "frequently asked question" page.

"It makes the head tutor more of an adviser and less of a dictionary of facts," said Rohit Chopra '04, a member of the council and the CUE.

Some CUE members expressed concerns that the proposed website would replace meetings with students--meetings that they said were crucial to building community in the department.

"We would be distressed if we thought this would be replacing face-to-face meetings," said Rory A.W. Browne, assistant dean of freshmen.

Some concentrations, including the psychology and computer science departments, are already beginning plans to develop such information, said Professsor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, who serves as head tutor of the department.

Representatives of the Instructional Computing Group said it might be possible to create a "toolkit" where departments could build websites from a shell the group would create.

Pederson said the information each department provided on the website would also help demonstrate its responsiveness to student concerns.

"What you get on the website is a reflection of the competency and openness of the concentration," she said.

The CUE agreed to continue pursuing plans for the proposed guide, and discuss the project further with the University's information technology group to figure the practicality of such a program.

"There's no reason not to try," Pederson said.