CONCENTRATION CHOICE

In an interview this month on the curricular review, Kirby says that pushing back concentration choice—which will be recommended to the Faculty in May—will allow students to explore more than one area of study in depth.

But whether the Faculty accept pushing the decision back to the middle of the sophomore year will depend in part on whether they have confidence in a revised plan for general advising that would then have to make room for first-semester sophomores in addition to first-years.

“We don’t do a good enough job in freshman advising. I worry if we push back advising and don’t improve advising especially in the first and second year, then we will make the advising system worse,” says Cabot Professor of Biology Richard M. Losick, who is head tutor for biochemical sciences and sits on the curricular review steering committee. “I’m not religiously opposed to pushing back concentration choice per se, but if we do that we have to have a better advising system.”

Professors in the science departments in particular worry that students who may not receive concentration advising before the second semester of sophomore year will have trouble fulfilling departmental requirements, according to Gross.

“In the sciences, the concern about pushing back concentrations is that students won’t have had enough necessary background,” he says.

Gregory C. Tucci, the assistant director of undergraduate studies in chemistry, says he is worried that without proper advising, students who decide to join departments during sophomore year may have missed the chance to take prerequisite courses.

Humanities faculty also have qualms about extending the current non-concentration advising apparatus, says Peter Machinist, the acting head tutor for near eastern languages and civilizations.

“I went to a meeting of advisors a couple of weeks ago. Several of us from different quarters had a little hesitation about delaying [concentration declaration] too much because if you start the requirement too late, you’re not going to be able to do anything serious,” says Machinist, the Hancock professor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages. “In our field, you can’t start a language in your junior year.”

But finding the source for the additional advising may be difficult. The departments currently have staffs to deal with in-concentration advising, but have minimal resources to handle non-concentrators.

Anya E. Bernstein, director of studies for social studies, says the program might need to create a staff to advise non-concentrators, a task for which it is now unprepared.

“We would have to focus on helping students to figure out what they want to do to a greater extent even before they’ve determined that they definitely want to be a social studies concentrator,” Bernstein says. “Right now, we don’t really have the infrastructure to do a lot of that. We have the assistant director who will meet with students, but he’s one person.”

Lindsley Professor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, the head tutor in psychology, suggests that the department hire staffers to keep track of concentration requirements while asking faculty to advise students as academic mentors.

“I’m not sure I trust the faculty to be on top of all the requirements because it actually requires paying attention,” Kosslyn says. “The requirements change. The ideal from my point of view would be to have a full-time professional who is really an expert, and his job is to track requirements.”

Tucci points out that without strong advising for undeclared sophomores, the increased academic freedom that would accompany delaying the concentration choice may backfire.