Advising the Advisers

Resident tutors, the graduate students and scholars who live among us in the Houses, are supposed to be available and effective resources for undergraduates. These tutors have important responsibilities—they oversee entryways, inform students about careers and advise them on coursework. While most of these tutors do an admirable job—holding regular office hours, hosting study breaks, eating with undergraduates and volunteering to listen to students’ concerns—some remain isolated from everyday interaction with undergraduates.

Since there has never been any formal procedure for the College and House Masters to monitor resident tutors, they are essentially free to treat their jobs as casually or as seriously as they like. But in the last month, four Houses—Cabot, Kirkland, Eliot and Pforzheimer—encouraged their students to participate in an online evaluation of resident tutors. This survey was the first formal chance for undergraduates to comment on the resident tutors with whom they have interacted. These evaluations should be an effective way of holding tutors responsible for making themselves an active part of House life.

The lack of official assessment of tutors makes it easy for students who truly need help to fall through the cracks. The advice of resident tutors, who usually have extensive experience in their fields and at Harvard, is invaluable—especially to sophomores, who are unfamiliar with the House and who may be struggling in a new concentration.

Resident tutors have one of the cushiest jobs on campus, and it is only fair that they are required to faithfully fulfill their duties. Getting free housing and food in the city of Cambridge is an advantage which many covet—hence the huge number of applicants to the program. After passing rigorous screening and interviews, the tutors are then supposed to integrate themselves into the House community. They work on an honor system; the University trusts that the tutors will voluntarily fulfill their duties without being monitored, and if there is a breach of that trust, the school has little way of knowing. Tutors are a substantial investment for the College, and it would be wise to follow up on the results of that investment on a regular basis.

Leverett House Master Howard Georgi has said that the House would no longer feel like a family if some family members are given the power to evaluate others. But tutors are paid employees of the College and, however friendly the House atmosphere, the nature of their stay is contractual. It makes sense that students, for whom the tutors are supposedly resources, are able to commend tutors who do an outstanding job and to make suggestions to those who are less effective.

The online tutor survey should be mandatory for students, so that everyone—not just those who have a disagreement with a particular tutor—has an equal say. Students are the only ones who could possibly know if the tutors are doing their jobs; Faculty members and House Masters cannot see the tutors in action. Student evaluations, therefore, must form a large part of the University’s efforts to improve the House tutor system.

The CUE Guide-style evaluations of tutors are long overdue, and we hope that more Houses will adopt them as one way to improve undergraduate life and advising at Harvard.