After years of planning and discussion, a new system of academic advising for Arts and Sciences undergraduates will begin this semester.
Under the new system, every class is divided alphabetically into four groups, and a different advising dean will be responsible for these students throughout their Tufts careers. The School of Engineering will not be included in this system and is under the sole charge of Kim Knox.
"It's going to provide more continuity of care," Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser said. "Someone ... will really know you in a way the old system didn't make possible."
Previously, specific deans were permanently attached to each year, so students dealt with a new dean during each of their four years at Tufts.
Glaser said that this improved framework will strengthen student bonds between with the academic advising dean and build fuller, longer advising relationships.
The new system will be particularly effective in helping deans address recurring student problems and concerns that span several years, he said.
"This will especially help students who have issues that require someone in the administration to be playing close attention," Glaser said, citing family and financial struggles beyond the academic sphere.
Administrators have mulled over the workings of the new system for nearly three years, Glaser said. The Task Force for Undergraduate Experience, which in 2003 issued a series of recommendations for improving undergraduate life at Tufts, supplied the initial idea.
Changing the old system required changes within the Undergraduate Dean's office. Sheila Bayne, formerly the dean for juniors, now works full-time as Director of Programs Abroad, while former sophomore class Dean Chris Nwabeke is now the Director of Special Projects in Dowling Hall.
These vacancies will be filled by Karen Garrett Gould, a former administrator from Brandeis University, and Carol Baffi-Dugan, who until now served as Pre-Health Advisor and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education.
Though she acknowledges the benefits of the new system, Associate Dean Jeanne Dillon will miss some aspects of the old arrangement. She argues that the earlier structure allowed deans to get to know the hurdles specific to each year that students experience at Tufts.
"You develop a huge, deep area of expertise," Dillon said. "You even get to know the University better because you're getting to know about the areas students are having issues with."
Dillon said that class deans facilitated each class's transition and were well-versed in the most pertinent problems for each class. Formerly the dean of seniors, Dillon said she regularly exchanges advice with Jean Herbert, the erstwhile freshman dean.
Mainly, Gould hopes that the new system will get more students consulting their advising deans.
"I don't want to be a person behind another file cabinet or a group of directors," she said. "I want students to feel welcome here."
"Students will hopefully feel like they can come back here and see us and know us, and we in turn will know them," she said.
