Junior faculty add a special dimension to advising, being closer in experience and background to MIT's newest and most eager students. The rest of the freshman advisors come from research and administrative staff. While these nonfaculty advisors are among the most committed, freshmen nonetheless have an expectation that they will be advised by MIT faculty. In both cases, the Academic Resource Center matches advisors with an upperclass student associate advisor who is trained to assist and enhance the advising. In a Freshman Advising Seminar, the faculty member is both the seminar leader and first-year advisor to a group of eight freshman.
Students receive six units of credit for the seminar.
Because 80 percent of incoming freshman will prefer to be advised within a seminar, Academic Resource staff need enough faculty seminar leaders for 100 seminars. Faculty members who would like to connect with freshmen but cannot commit to teaching a seminar are more than welcome to serve as traditional advisors. Traditional advisors have three to five advisees with whom they meet on an individual basis several times per semester. Academic Resource staff are looking for faculty interested in participating in these experiments in bringing together living and learning. The deadline to commit to leading a Freshman Advising Seminar is Friday, March 30.