Here is what the faculty voted last spring: "That, beginning with the next entering class, every student be required to declare a field of concentration before the end of classes in the third term of enrollment. In addition, every student will be required to have a documented advising conversation with a representative from one or more prospective concentrations near the end of the second term of enrollment." The second sentence was added when some professors expressed a worry that under the new system, students would make uninformed course choices their sophomore fall. The professors who voted for this motion must have assumed that it meant that the concentration would document the advising conversation. That way the concentrations would know who the interested freshmen were and could validate that they got advised by someone in the department before their sophomore year began. The administration chose to interpret this language to mean that the students themselves would go to a web site to "document" that they had talked to someone. Amazing.
 

The "kick-off event" at Annenberg Hall last night was an updated version of what used to be called "concentration fair." Tables were arranged for faculty representatives of the various concentrations to display information about their field, provide brochures and handouts, talk with interested students and note their names and e-mail addresses so that there can be some follow-up. There will be additional informational events in the various departments and programs, and these were announced on the glossy pizza-promotion-like sheet that students were carrying away with them.
The previous poster has not fully understood what will be recorded. As I understand it, not only will students themselves report their "advising conversations" on a website, but they will also need to get an official signature from the Head Tutor or Director of Undergraduate Studies in the concentrations where they have had these "conversations." That signature then goes to their official advisor.
The only problem with the new arrangement was that it was announced relatively late. At Harvard, important events like this need to be on the calendar from the beginning of the year, otherwise faculty, in particular, will have trouble fitting them into their already crowded schedules. But next year, that will doubtless be the case and everyone will know in September that Advising Fortnight will take place between specific dates in April.
 

The glossy "Advising Fortnight" brochure clearly lists the six-step process students are required to follow. The student simply reports which group or individual session(s) were attended, and, if it was an individual session, the name of the advisor. If it was a group session, the student simply reports the title and the date of the group session. Nowhere is there an instruction to get a signature from anyone.
 

I just looked at the glossy brochure, and that is indeed what it says. But at least one student tells me he's coming to get my signature. Hm.
 

Students can just say they showed up at any concentration meeting and be done with it by clicking a box on the web. So why is it that after four years of "renewal" of undergraduate education, calls for more student-faculty contact, creating a whole office of advising with people designing glossy brochures, after all that, the deans don't think there needs to be face time between students and professors? Can anyone explain what is going on here? It doesn't make any sense.