A lot has been said about Dean Pelton's plan to create first-year student residence halls -- quite a bit of it has been negative and much of it impassioned. The plan has both strengths and weaknesses that need to be dealt with and should not be obscured by rhetoric.
The part of the plan that appeals to me the most is the inclusion of a member of the faculty in the new residence halls. As both a one-time freshman and a one-time Undergraduate Advisor, I have had much experience with the faculty advising system as it now exists. Overall, it is a failure.
True, the ratio of advisors to advisees is very low, however, many advisors do not wish to advise, to be "burdened" with first-year students who will probably not even stay in the major for long, anyway. However, there are faculty members out there who more than make up for this slack, and they do so voluntarily. Unfortunately only luck or good advice will allow a first-year student to take advantage of the help of those professors who are willing to take an interest.
Because there would be only a very limited number of places available for faculty to live close to the first-year students, only those who truly wish to interact with the students would take the job. There can be no doubt that this system is to the benefit of the first-year student.
Furthermore, by making the first-year seminar professor the advisor as well as the instructor, the College would be eliminating the major problem with the faculty advising system. My freshman advisor and I are now acquainted and get along quite well, but this relationship developed because I took a class with him. I doubt if he even remembers that I was one of his advisees. Frankly, he did not have the time to see me and get to know me, and I did not have the opportunity.
However if an advisor interacts with his advisee three to four hours a week for 10 weeks, then he could not help but become acquainted with the students he is advising, and vice-versa. I know that I would much rather get advice from someone I know and who knows me than from someone who was assigned to me and does not even know my face.
There are, however, some major drawbacks to the proposed plan. One thing that I cherish above all else at Dartmouth is the ease with which students from the different classes mingle. It is not unusual to see younger students developing lasting friendships with upperclass students.
This trend is further enhanced by the fact that the courses we take are rarely segregated by class level. Admittedly there will be more first-year students in an introductory class, but there will also be seniors in those classes. Furthermore, it is not unusual to see first-year students taking difficult and advanced courses the first term they are here.
It is artificial to claim that by creating a residence hall that includes only first-year students we are enhancing the link between a student's academic life and his social life. Truthfully I have more in common with a first-year student who shares my love and passion for history that I do with the '96 Chemistry major that lived down the hall from me.
If you wish to create a link between a student's academic and social lives, why not create a system of residence halls organized by majors rather than by class year.
Perhaps, my greatest worry is that this new system will have an isolating effect on first-year students. As a UGA, and through other activities, I had the joy of becoming friends with many first year students. I fear that if in the future an artificial division is imposed between first-year and upperclass-students, then Dartmouth social life will become strange and stagnant -- a thing unrecognizable and horrible.
