LAISSEZ-FAIRE

On the other hand, the Economics department—the largest concentration at Harvard—has taken a more market-oriented approach to thesis advising.

A more hands-off system, giving students and faculty complete independence, pairs advisers with advisees most efficiently, according to DUS Jeffrey G. Williamson.

Williamson says his department’s system allows professors who are better advisers to have more student advisees.

Students should have the freedom to flock to professors “who like [thesis advising] and are good at it,” and “students should avoid the bad ones,” according to Williamson. Also, potential adviser and advisee can themselves decide “if the chemistry is good or if it is bad” between them, he says.

“It’s demand and the market at work,” Williamson adds.

This approach has resulted in an uneven distribution of student advisees among faculty in the department.

“That’s not ideal,” says Professor of Economics David I. Laibson ’88, who advised four undergraduate theses last year. “Obviously, it would be nice if we spread the work evenly across the faculty.”

But, “you wouldn’t want faculty to turn away advisees simply because the faculty member has more advisees than average,” he continues, saying that the popularity of certain fields inevitably results in some professors having more advisees than others.

Williamson says this outcome does not trouble him.

“If I felt I was being burdened and some of my colleagues are not working hard enough, I wouldn’t do it,” says Williamson, who advised six theses in the last thesis cycle.

“Why would the DUS know better than students or faculty?” says Williamson, in explaining the lack of a matching process in the Economics department. “We think the market works better.”

Gregory R. Atwan ’05, a joint concentrator in English and Classics, who experienced both the matching and self-selection processes, says he thinks finding one’s own adviser is simpler—though he doubts that its efficacy holds up in larger departments.

“As long as it’s not Economics and Government where students are not expected to have a close relationship with their professors, I think putting the burden on the student to find someone works very well,” he says.

DUS Virginie Greene wrote that the Romance Languages and Literatures Department’s policy “leaves the initiative to the student,” which she says is important because “writing a thesis is about achieving an independent project.”