College Unveils Advising Plan

The College announced a revised advising program yesterday designed to solve one of the looming hurdles posed by the curricular review—how to provide academic counseling to first-semester sophomores who have yet to choose a concentration next fall.

Under the new system, each House will appoint a resident tutor as a “sophomore advising coordinator” to assign rising sophomores to other resident tutors of the House who have experience in the areas of interest indicated by the students.

The revision was billed as a solution to a problem seen in last year’s Faculty move to delay concentration choice until the middle of sophomore year. Under that legislation, which takes effect for the Class of 2010, first-semester sophomores would find themselves in advising limbo—having outgrown their freshman year advisors but not yet joining the concentration advising structure.

The plan was announced by the Committee on Advising and Counseling in conjunction with the House Masters and the Student Advisory Board to the Advising Programs Office (APO).

According to a College statement, the sophomore advisors will provide academic counsel to students as they near their date of declaration, as well as pre-professional and extracurricular guidance as they acclimate to House life.

Currently, sophomores are assigned both a concentration advisor and a general advisor. The concentration advisor is typically a professor or administrator in the student’s concentration, while the general advisor is a resident tutor or other House administrator in the student’s house.

In the statement, Associate Dean Monique Rinere, who leads the APO, said that the new system would allow for the consolidation of these two advisors.

"Many Houses already have sophomore advising programs in place, and this offers them the opportunity to strengthen [the programs] and tie them to pre-concentration advising," Rinere said.

Rinere added in an e-mail to The Crimson that she did not expect the new advising program to cause a strain on House budgets.

"The total cost of sophomore advising programs will remain the same," Rinere wrote.

Eliot House Master Lino Pertile, the Pescosolido professor of Romance languages and literatures, concurred, but cautioned that it would be impossible to judge the program until it is actually implemented.

"It brings academic advising back to the Houses, and therefore it links and integrates the work that is done in the House with the work that is done in the department," said Pertile in an interview. "It remains to be seen, but potentially this can be a very good thing."

Lowell House Master Diana L. Eck, the Wertham professor of law and psychiatry in society, called the new advising program an "exciting new step."

"It should reinvigorate the intellectual connect between tutors and residents, and we look forward to [having] a solid discussion about the curriculum and this more formal advising relationship with sophomores," Eck said.

Matthew L. Sundquist ’09, a former member of the APO’s Student Advisory Board and current vice president of the Undergraduate Council, was positive about the new system.

"When you get into a House you’re usually on your own, and this [system] will facilitate putting sophomores into more of a relation with tutors early," Sundquist said.

Pertile and Eck said that, for their Houses, they will be appointing an existing residential tutor as sophomore advising coordinator.

Eck added that both residential tutors and some Faculty members affiliated with Lowell House will serve as sophomore advisors for the house.

"All of our tutors will participate in sophomore advising. This is something we have discussed in our tutor meetings and each tutor will have four or five students to advise," Eck said. "We will also use some Faculty members because they have participated in [advising] in the past."

Current first-year Michael D. Cupelli ’10 was optimistic about the new program after hearing about it. He said that assigning sophomores to resident tutors would be more helpful than being assigned to a professor before choosing a concentration.

"House tutors seem to have a more rounded spectrum of knowledge, whereas professors are more specific," said Cupelli. "Professors would benefit the people who are much more focused on their majors, but people who are decentralized in their pursuits would kind of be up the creek."

—Staff writer Aditi Banga can be reached at abanga@fas.harvard.edu.