Advisers expect undergraduates to personally seek them out, and students say they feel alienated from advising resources—a sharp contrast to the advising system’s mission as expressed by economics undergraduate program administrator Emily R. Neill, who oversees the administration of the advising program.

“For me, advising is about making students feel like we know who they are,” Neill says.

Yet Hall says that he does not know the names of all of his 150 advisees, mainly due to lack of student traffic into his office in Littauer.

Concentrators agree that their advisers very rarely know their names, as the graduate students typically only meet their advisees in study card signing lines.

“I don’t know anyone [in economics] who used their adviser for anything—ever,” says Jason D. Sherman ’10, an economics concentrator.

Sherman adds that he believes Economics provides an “extreme example” of a concentration where students receive relatively little guidance.

“The whole culture in the economics department seems to be ‘learn it by yourself,’ or ‘do it by yourself,’” He says.

THE AUDACITY OF SATISFACTION

The economics department’s hypothetical long-term plan is to hire up to three staff concentration advisers, who will replace all seven graduate advisers. Though the number of economics advisers would be cut by more than half, the department’s hope is that the incoming staff adviser would bring a specialized interest to the job.

Sherman says he is excited about the new structure because “a staff member might know more, and be able to dedicate more time to advising.”

But economics concentrator Colin J. Motley ’10 says that the loss of a graduate student adviser might actually increase the disconnect between students and advising resources, since a staff adviser may be less integrated into the department and may “not be the kind of person that you want to talk to in a meaningful way.”

Faculty in the economics department express similarly mixed views about the potential benefits of the change.

Department chair John Y. Campbell says that while he has been concerned about the recent ratings for economics advising on senior surveys, he is “very optimistic” that further consolidation could provide improved experience for concentrators.

“Hopefully students will come to know the adviser, come to trust that person, and word of mouth may have a beneficial effect,” Campbell says.

Yet the low scores for economics advising on the senior survey may not even necessarily be a function of poor advising quality, according to Miron.