“I think our low score for advising on the senior survey is partially reflecting dissatisfaction with the large classes in the economics concentration,” he says.
A GOV CONNECTION
Though government—Harvard’s other mammoth concentration—is making a parallel move toward advising reform, its tactics mark a significant departure from the principles guiding the economics department’s decisions.
In 2006, the government concentration switched to House-based advising after working with a hybrid of House advising and centralized advising based in CGIS for a number of years.
The residential concentration advisers operate within an official advising capacity and are capable of signing students’ study cards. They are also responsible for holding weekly office hours and meet on a monthly basis to discuss upcoming deadlines and other concerns.
A number of government concentration advisers praise the system for the ways in which it allows them to bring advising directly to students.
“At 10 o’clock at night in the dining hall, I can recommend classes or answer questions,” says Brodi J. Kemp, theLowell House government tutor. “It’s really nice to have that.”
In a reflection of the desire to maintain a government advising community, Kemp says that the department has also pushed to ensure that the majority of the House advisers are residential tutors, as opposed to non-res tutors who are merely affiliated with a House.
“I think the residential House advisers are so convenient,” government concentrator Bradford O. Bailey ’10 says. “The advisers are mentors and models for academic life and academic issues.”
And the newest advising reform—the recruitment of a group of rising juniors and seniors to serve as peer concentration counselors (PCCs)—will help the department further develop a sense of community among concentrators and advisers, administrators say.
Cheryl B. Welch, director of undergraduate studies for the government department, says the PCCs will provide concentrators “another contact for course selection” and will encourage “conversations about the courses and the material,” while drawing on personal experience.
Welch adds that while she hopes to further improve government advising in the future, she plans to maintain the House-based system as the central pillar of the department’s advising.
“It seems to be a fairly good way of bridging the gap, of bringing down a big concentration to a manageable size,” Welch says.
THE WIDER DISCUSSION
As the concentration advising systems in economics and government continue to evolve over the coming years, the successes and failures of these programs may inform the structuring of advising in other Harvard departments.
As Campbell notes, economics has already drawn “inspiration” from the life sciences, which has used a staff advising system for several years.
Both Welch and Karen Kaletka, coordinator of undergraduate studies in the government department, express interest in seeing how the economics department’s changes in advising might influence senior exit survey results—information that could possibly be used to inform the government department’s own efforts at advising reform.
—Staff writer Gautam S. Kumar can be reached at gkumar@college.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Evan T.R. Rosenman can be reached at erosenm@fas.harvard.edu.