“I think students working together to produce study guides can be a wonderful thing; I think students making use of a study guide produced two years ago is an awful thing,” Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris says. “It’s an expression of a certain kind of indifference to learning... a certain kind of laziness.”
But Bowman says that he views the study guide library as a means to give the same resources to all students. To Bowman, the initiative to take information spread out over campus and consolidate it in one place for all undergrads is a philosophy that has driven many of the other UC online initiatives.
Bowman, Hysen, and Harris will continue discussions on collaborative alternatives to the initial study guide idea, such as a student Wikipedia site where students could work together to craft entries.
MORE IN THE WORKS
According to Fabrizio, the UC will next work towards revamping of the events calendar currently available to students through the my.harvard.edu portal.
“It’s just a little overwhelming at this point,” Hysen says, adding that the UC is working with C.S. 50 lecturer David J. Malan ’99 to improve the site’s interface and search filters.
To incentivize student groups to make use of the my.harvard.edu events calendar, the SRC will raffle three $100 prizes in the pool of student groups that have uploaded event information by the end of the day today.
In addition to the event calendar, the UC also has long-term plans to re-vamp the UC Web site in an effort to make the UC more accessible and transparent to students.
The UC currently has a blog—entitled UC Juicy—a Twitter account, and Facebook page to connect with students on the Web.
Fabrizio says that the UC’s increased online presence is part of a larger push towards making the UC more relevant to the student body—a goal that also includes last week’s lacrosse tailgate and red Harvard shirt dispersal and the creation of the UC study breaks, which will pilot next week in Adams and Mather Houses.
“These online initiatives are really important, but they are not to replace face-to-face contact with UC reps,” Fabrizio says.
—Staff writer Janie M. Tankard can be reached at jtankard@fas.harvard.edu.