Reach Out and Touch Someone

Earlier this week, Assistant Dean of Advising Programs Monique Rinere announced the creation of the Peer Advising Fellows program, an innovative new effort to get first-years plugged in to the Harvard community before they even arrive on campus. The program will pair each member of the class of 2010 with a qualified upperclassman whose role it will be to advise him or her, formally and informally, throughout the year.

The new program is exciting because it promises to fill the long-standing void in the first year experience created by ineffective and inconsistent advising. At present, most freshmen hear nary a peep from their advisers until move in week, at which point they are consigned to a single adviser—an overburdened freshman proctor or a distant and often inaccessible faculty member—with whom they briefly interact before drifting off into the rest of freshman year. Amazingly, the result has been good for many, in spite of the system. Now the new program will make it possible for freshmen to receive solid advising that connects them to the Harvard community before the school year even begins, and that is consistent across the freshmen class and throughout the year. The program will also preserve the most important aspects of the Prefect Program, which makes important contributions to the coherence of first-year residential life.

After applications are reviewed and candidates selected, Peer Advising Fellows will be assigned to first-year dormitories, or, in the case of smaller residences, to groups of small dormitories. Each adviser will then be matched with individual freshmen who share their interests—academic, extracurricular, and social—within the dormitory. Together they will form a group of some 8-10 advisees, who will meet both together and individually throughout the year to navigate the Harvard’s challenges.

Fellows will then be assigned a second time within the dormitory, to an individual entryway in which they’ll work closely with a proctor and two or three other Fellows to coordinate regular entryway social events, like study breaks and Sunday brunch outings. To one group of freshmen then, a Peer Advising Fellow will be the person with whom they’ll meet regularly to formally discuss academic issues. To another, the Fellow will be a social presence and an informal conduit to student life at Harvard.

The new program will exceed both the current first-year advising system and the Prefect Program in its structure and thoroughness. A given month will comprise a well-ordered set of events, geared at bringing together freshmen who share interests. One week would hold an informal meeting of a peer advising group, where first-years would be able to benefit from each others’ questions and experiences, and the insight of their shared peer adviser. An entryway study break would take place another week, and Peer Advising Fellows would attend their assigned entryways to mingle and answer questions. One-on-one meetings between fellows and their advisees would ensure that advisers check-in with their advisees on a regular basis, unlike the present system where such interactions tend only to happen at “crunch times” (when there are study cards to be signed, for instance). The icing on the cake would be well-funded dorm-wide social events, like sports events, barbeques by the Charles, and special student-faculty functions, which would be attended by each dorm’s cohort of fellows and freshmen. The goal is the creation of community on three levels—within dormitories, so that freshmen could imaginably knock on someone’s dorm outside their entryway when they need help the night before Ec 10 problem sets are due; within entryways, so that the little crises that define the freshman experience can be dealt with by proctors and present upperclassmen before they become major issues; and within peer advising groups, so that first-years can benefit from the agglomeration of their peers’ questions and experiences.

So what’s in it for Peer Advising Fellows? First, the chance to make a real difference in the lives of first-years; every upperclassman has a story to tell about Harvard’s daunting course catalogue, its competitive atmosphere, or its formidable expectations, and Fellows would be in a unique position to use their experience and training to help first-years navigate the minefield that Harvard can sometimes be.

Fellows would also profit from close interactions with the faculty members with whom they would work in advising groups of freshmen, as efforts to recruit ever-greater numbers of faculty to work as first-year advisers continue. At a college where the remoteness of faculty is a common complaint, creating opportunities for student-faculty contact into a new advising program stands to make a great contribution to the lives of both freshmen and the upperclassmen who advise them.

In addition to forging links among freshmen with common interests, the new program will also create a community of upperclassmen with a shared concern for the welfare of first-years, and a strong network of resources to deal informally with their own advising issues. Fellows would not only comprise a safety net for freshmen—they would have one of their own.

The new program also has strong support from University Hall, which should mean bigger programming budgets and better rewards for Fellows. Dean Rinere announced on Monday that fellows would receive a $1,000 annual stipend for their participation in the program. When one considers that the job is estimated to take approximately 40 hours each semester, that stipend translates into a very well paying campus job. Not only does this sweeten the deal for prospective Fellows, it also removes a barrier to entry that currently affects the Prefect Program. In paying fellows, the program makes participation a real possibility for qualified upperclassmen with financial aid commitments.

With the announcement of the new Peer Advising Fellows program, first-year advising at Harvard seems ready to change for the better. This exciting new initiative will, however, only succeed with the support of undergraduates keen to make a difference in the lives of freshmen. Take the time to fill out the (short) application before the weekend’s out. The class of 2010 will thank you for it.

Adam Goldenberg ’08 is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.