The Alchemy of Advising

Graduate students in the chemistry department take the intensity of their lives for granted. While undergraduates enjoy three long months of summer vacation, their graduate counterparts say they are lucky if they can escape the lab for two weeks.

But sometimes intensity can be too much, and over the past year the Chemistry Department has implemented a nine-point plan to improve the quality of life for overworked chemistry students.

The process began last summer, when simmering problems with the Chemistry Department's advising system came to head. Jason D. Altom, a fifth-year graduate student, committed suicide last August and blamed the department for failing to provide him with adequate support.

In the wake of Altom's death, Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology James G. Anderson began the process of improving advising and other services for chemistry graduate students.

Now, one year later, members of the department say that the changes have been successfully implemented and, for the most part, have had a wonderful effect on the students.

"A lot of people here feel the administration is doing a good job to turn things around and make it a more pleasant place," says Laurie Deiner, a second-year grad student. "You certainly feel cared about and that your problems will be addressed."

Forging Bonds

According to Anderson, the changes to the Chemistry Department can be broken down into two categories, both aimed to improve relations between professors and students.

The department has improved both the advising structure and the physical structure of the Mallinckrodt Laboratory, the hub of chemistry at Harvard to make them more conducive to communication and camaraderie.

Some of the major changes include lectures on alternative careers in chemistry, confidential off-campus psychiatric help, and social events that help bring together the different research groups within the Department.

In addition to these changes, one specific problem that Altom mentioned in his suicide note is on its way to be remedied. Until this year, graduate students had one adviser with whom they worked closely from their first year until the completion of a thesis.

Now, for the first time students can form a pre-thesis committee comprised of their adviser and two other Faculty members.

"A lot of what we've been trying to do is increase communication between the students and the Faculty, says Krista A. Beaver, a third-year graduate student who is also the co-chair of the Chemistry Department's Quality of Life Committee. "New committees do that."

A physical overhaul is planned as well. The lobby of Mallinckrodt Laboratory will be renovated in order to make the building more user-friendly.

"The lobby will contain the offices of the chair of the department, the lab director, and support for students," Anderson says. "It establishes a human face of the department to anyone who comes in."

The lobby will then lead into one of the biggest additions to the Chemistry Department in years, a new student center.

"The student center is a distinct departure from the past," Anderson says. "It will have a cafe, a place for computers, and students can view lectures or sporting events.

Anderson says the center will be the "social and intellectual hub" of the chemistry department.

"It will not only be a meeting place but it will also have a revolving presentation of student research across the department to introduce different areas of chemistry," he says.

The new lobby is expected to be complete before school begins in the fall, but the student center--a much larger project--will be done by January.

Not only can students socialize in the laboratory, but the department is also subsidizing the occasional night on the town for its graduate students.

"We are happy that we can go out and the department will pick up the bill," says Joshua M. Finkelstein, a first-year chemistry graduate student.

The Right Solution?

So do these changes help make up for a lack of summer vacation and the long hours that graduate students complain about?

Faculty members say that they fully support Anderson's decisions and that they are pleased with the University for allocating more funds for the important goal of improving student life.

"These are things we've been trying to do for awhile," says Lawrence Professor of Chemistry David A. Evans. "They are decisions that would have been made by the Faculty."

"We're just pleased that University hall has backed us," he adds. "I think that U-Hall is to be congratulated for supporting our plans. We're delighted with the cooperation we've had from central administration for the departmental proposals to increase funding for student centers."

Evans also says that he thinks students are happy with the changes.

In fact, most students say they are extremely pleased by the changes, and that they have noticed a difference within the department.

"I feel the department is definitely trying to show a more caring attitude, Deiner says. "There is a more open communication feeling."

"I think that they are doing a lot of good things," says Jason D. Birch, a first-year graduate student, "and students are excited."

Beaver says she is most impressed with the responsiveness of the administration to the Quality of Life Committee and its ideas.

"I think the department has been very receptive to our suggestions as far as what directions they should take to improve," she says. "A lot of it will take time before we see the effects of it, but we've had a lot of input in what's going on."

Saturation Level

Yet, these solutions can only go so far, some students say. A lot of the intensity in the Chemistry Department comes from the students themselves, and no amount of social planning can change that.

"My problem is that a lot of people who need to do it (socialize outside of the laboratory), don't," Birch says. "They think they can't. It's fun for the people who don't need it.

"I don't there is anything that can be done," he adds. "It's kind of inherent in the way they are, but I don't think this place makes them that way. They just can't relax."

"The problems may be fundamental to graduate school in science, and may not be easily correctable," Finkelstein says.

"I think that [the department is] starting in the right direction," he says, "but they definitely have a long way to go.

Anderson says that the process of change is ongoing and will be reevaluated every year.

"I think the changes are going to have very powerful implications, he says. "We're just beginning see how it went this year, and keep making changes. Improving the department has become an abiding interest and concern."