Grogan and Jackman advocate practical goals foradvising improvements--solutions that "allow forhuman imperfections."

Graduate students do not come to Harvardbecause of the personalities of the professors,Grogan says. They come for the stellar academics,and without those priorities, this "wouldn't bethe department, or the University, that it is."

Jackman agrees: "You can't legislate how aperson is going tointeract with someone."

Current GSC President Carlos Lopez, who hasserved on the board for four years, saysattempting to mechanize the advisor's role isfutile.

"There are too many variables--age,temperament," Lopez says. "This comes down topeople."

Besides, department administrators have nomechanisms to regulate faculty, especially theirtenured professors.

"Chairmans are not dictators but facilitators,"Anderson says. "I don't serve as a judge or a juryto reprimand or condemn."

Instead of cracking down on the way professorswork with their advisees, Jackman says thedepartment's student-run Quality of Life committeewill finish a proposal this fall advocating"multiple lines of communication" within thedepartment.

It is unrealistic to expect three professors toconvene once a year to discuss a student's work,Jackman says.

But creating an informal thesis-advisingcommittee early, and asking another professor tobe available via e-mail to provide a differentperspective from one's own research advisor, isnot an unreasonable expectation, they say.

One on One

Some members of the GSC, however, hope toredefine the student-advisor relationship itself.

In the wake of Ge's suicide, then-GSC PresidentAdam P. Fagen wrote an open letter to PresidentRudenstine, indicating that Ge's death had causedsome graduate students to vocalize theirfrustrations at a November meeting of HarvardChinese Students and Scholars Association.

"It was very clear that many students feelpowerless against the unreasonable expectations,unconcern, and unprofessional behavior of somefaculty members," the letter reads. "As graduatestudents, we often feel that we have no recourse,no real mechanism for dealing with problems thatmay arise, or even a clear elucidation of what isexpected from our faculty advisors, ourdepartments, the Graduate School and theUniversity."

J. Paul Callan, a physics graduate student whorepresented the Committee on Graduate Education,addressed the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)meeting in February, echoing the assertion thatwhile some are satisfied with the assistance theyreceive, others suffer.