Staff members at Annenberg Hall, where first-years take their meals, said they will miss seeing DeGreeff and his family at mealtimes.

“He has the cutest kid I’ve ever known,” Annenberg ID checker Domna Antonia. “Everybody loves the kid. He’s our mascot. He even knows my name.”

Jeremiah made a Valentine’s Day card for the dining hall’s staff, and his picture rests behind the Annenberg check-in stand.

The students in DeGreeff’s proctor group say future first-years are missing out on a unique proctoring experience.

“It’s sad that next year’s freshmen won’t get to know him, and have discussions with him while sitting in a big cushy chair and eating home-baked cookies, and wave to Jeremiah in Annenberg at dinner,” said Charlotte E. Gray ’05.

“Matt really knows how to relate to students. If students are having trouble with something, he knows how to guide them in the right direction while letting them feel like they are making the right decisions on their own,” she said.

DeGreeff said proctoring has been one of his most rewarding experiences at Harvard.

“The magic of proctoring is the day-to-day interaction,” he said. “The big events leave memories but when you help people through really tough times that’s when you really make a difference. You establish lots of small relationships with people that carry with you for the rest of your life.”

DeGreeff has taught that ethic to his students—six of whom have themselves become first-year proctors.

But it is not likely that any of them will stay in the Yard as long as he did—and some of them have already come and gone.

“Historically, there have been more people like myself,” DeGreeff said.

Old-timers today, he said, are people like fellow admissions officer Christine A. Kelley, who has been a proctor for seven years.

“Legendary” proctors in the past, he said, served for 30 or 40 years.

“I think Harvard’s just a different place than it was 30 years ago,” he said.

—David C. Newman contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Jeslyn A. Miller can be reached at jmiller@fas.harvard.edu.