When Peter T. Wilson ’99 moved into his freshman dorm, his proctor, who had just graduated, was dating a then-student from the senior class.

Nine years later and now in his fifth year as the Eliot House resident tutor for architecture, drama and BGLT issues, Wilson says he still sees romantic relationships between resident tutors and students, though the rules have definitely become stricter.

Cracking down on romantic relationships has not succeeded in clarifying what may be the root of the problem: the ill-defined and often divergent roles, rights and responsibilities of resident tutors.

“Sometimes you’re an aproned housewife with warm cookies, sometimes you’re a boring spout of Harvard-specific procedural information, and sometimes you’re a roaming night watchman,” says Samuel T. Moulton ’01, a psychology tutor in Dunster House.

While House Masters and resident tutors disagree on the nature of student-tutor relationships, one thing is clear—romance is out of the question.

Last March, Lauren E. Brown, a Quincy House resident tutor, left the House after allegedly engaging in a romantic relationship with a Quincy student. House Master Robert P. Kirshner ’70 spoke to his resident tutors last year about the case, and College administrators investigated other examples of inappropriate student-tutor contact.

But the ramifications of more ambiguous scenarios remain unclear. Nearly eight months after the highly publicized Quincy House affair, the administration has not refined its definition of the boundaries of appropriate relationships between resident tutors and students.

The question that remains for many students and administrators is just how much fun tutors and students are allowed to have together, and where to draw the line between productive mentorship and inappropriate behavior.

What is a Resident Tutor, Anyway?

Resident tutors offer a variety of services—everything from advising on course selection to hosting study breaks—and different visions abound on just what a tutor’s proper role is.

Associate Dean of the College Thomas A. Dingman ’67 said a resident tutor should serve three roles: as an adult figure in the entryway, as a scholar with whom to share ideas and experience, and as a community member. He said that as tutors carry out these responsibilities, he expects “people will find parameters.”

Moulton says tutors are “given the freedom to define our own approach,” but it is a circumscribed freedom.

“There’s actually a 50-page Resident Tutor Handbook,” he says. “It reads like a car manual, and has catchy acronyms to help tutors remember how to empathize with students.

“If you need a mnemonic in order to empathize, you shouldn’t be a tutor in the first place,” he adds.

The handbook is clear on the line that cannot be crossed: “Any amorous relationship with any undergraduate student so compromises appropriate exercise of Resident Tutor responsibilities that its existence will be grounds for immediate termination as a Resident Tutor.”