Wilson College to revamp advising with merger of RA, MAA roles

The Wilson College experience will differ from that of other residential colleges next year. Incoming students will arrive to find they no longer have an RA or MAA, but an RCA.

Wilson administrators have decided to implement a new trial advising system to take effect next fall and run for one year.

Under this new system, the positions of RA and MAA will be merged into one — a Residential Community Adviser. The size of advisee groups will expand so that, on average, three RCAs will be responsible for one advisee group of approximately 60 freshmen and 60 sophomores.

The RCA will have the responsibilities of both RAs and MAAs combined, Wilson College Master Miguel Centeno said.

"This is a pilot program for Wilson, merely an experiment on the part of Wilson to see if we can do advising better," Centeno said.

Centeno also emphasized that this new program was not an act solely by the college's administration. Rather, it was designed, proposed and created by a group of Wilson student advisers.

The group of student advisers met during this semester to discuss ways to improve the current advising system. Their goal, as stated in their proposal, was to strengthen Wilson's commitment to minority affairs, in addition to expanding its commitment to increased sensitivity on issues of gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class and culture.

"It's not so much that we want to combine the roles, but to expand the spirit of the current program," said Karen Ho, assistant master of Wilson, who took part in the discussions.

The 1994-1995 RA/MAA Review — an evaluation by the dean of student life office — was a starting point and helped to shape many of the group's ideas, Ho said.

"We added our own set of experiences on top of that," said Xiaochin Yan '02, an MAA in Wilson. "We shared what we thought went well and what we thought could improve. It was surprisingly easy to come to this point. A lot of students had similar hopes of what the new program would be."

The group wanted all RCAs to be committed to issues of diversity, community and community building in addition to playing an active role in education and programming.

"The new system makes everybody an MAA as well as expanding the program," Yan said.

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Under the current system, the four MAAs in each residential college are solely responsible for promoting awareness on issues of diversity and of organizing educational programs. Under the new system, RCAs will be responsible for developing programs that educate and generate discussion about diversity, Ho said.

With this new system, each advisee will have three RCAs, which "will give the advisee the opportunity to connect with three upperclassmen," Ho said, and will allow for greater diversity within the adviser group. All three RCAs will sign letters sent to advisees during the summer.

Wilson administrators also plan to circulate a sheet with all 16 RCAs' photos and lists of their major activities to demonstrate the diversity of the RCA group and to emphasize the idea that they are all available to advise.

"No advisee should feel limited to approaching just one adviser," Yan said.

To ensure that every advisee is covered, each advisee will have a "closest contact," an RCA who lives the closest to him or her.

How RCAs will be trained has not yet been determined. But Wilson will offer an independent training program — in addition to Assistant Dean of Student Life Andrea Diaz's RA/MAA training sessions — to prepare RCAs for their new roles, according to the proposal.

"One of the requirements and responsibilities in becoming an RCA is somebody who has a strong commitment, comfort with and desire to explore issues of diversity," Ho said.

Wilson is still in the process of fine-tuning the new pilot system, according to Centeno. Applicants for next year's RA and MAA positions, who are assigned an interview at Wilson, will be sent a letter explaining the details of the new program, he said.