Most of the advisors are experienced faculty, with 75 percent having tenure. The group also includes one Nobel laureate. Seven non-academic deans participate as well as a small number of other staff members. The department also has other outreach programs for freshmen and recently held a field trip to introduce them to the field of geology. One of the program's goals is to provide intellectual mentors for the students.
Some relationships endure throughout the student's four years and continue beyond.
A number of the seminars have developed into group projects that last far beyond the student's first term. The campus's experimental electronic newspaper, Freshman Fishwrap, was developed in a seminar given by the Media Lab's Walter Bender and Pascal Chesnais. Professor Merritt's own seminar has lived on as the Word Patrol, a group whose members last year visited the Harrington Elementary School in Cambridge to work with fourth graders on language games and word contests. Professor John Southard of EAPS takes his students on a January trip out west to test what they've learned from their seminar. A number of universities, such as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, have freshman seminar programs, but MIT is the only one to pair advising with actual instruction, according to Professor Merritt.