True Advising Fosters Academic Community

To the editors:

Rishi Ganti (Letters, Feb. 18) asks us to consider the economics faculty perspective when considering the undergraduate advising system. He rightly argues "it is extraordinarily difficult [for professors] to reconcile student demands with other faculty pressures." Media, government officials, corporations and foundations eagerly seek out the insight of economics faculty. Undergraduates are grateful to have access to such "stars" who are willing to help them develop study and research plans.

But alas, much of this attention--during junior and senior years--comes too late for many students. In the core economic theory and methodology courses in the first two years, students sit in large lecture halls. Applied econometrics, which teaches students crucial statistical research methods, consistently receives terrible CUE guide ratings. In spite of the presence of brilliant empirical researchers, the Department struggles to find an instructor for the course each year.

Additionally, if students want advice about their concentration, they see overburdened graduate students. The Department's rhetoric of deep faculty concern with the undergraduate experience seems to be at variance with its actions in the most fundamental elements of the concentration.

Students are not looking for advice from faculty about mundane concentration details, as Ganti repeatedly worries. They hunger for a sense of academic community and of engagement on the part of the faculty. If anything, graduate students and junior faculty--both of whom still have to "prove" themselves in academic circles--should join forces and demand that tenured faculty play a more active role in the lives of undergraduates.

It may mean one less magazine column, one less $3,000 honorarium for giving a speech to a business group and even one less journal article. In short, it would mean a slight shift in priorities. But surely it would also mean a more meaningful academic experience for many undergraduates. Wouldn't this be welfare-enhancing?