U. to combine RA and MAA positions

The University announced Monday that it will overhaul the residential college advising system next year. The new system will combine the roles of the residential adviser (RA) and the minority affairs adviser (MAA) into one position, the college adviser.

"The main thing that is different is the way that it combines the two positions," Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Hilary Herbold said. "The advising groups will be somewhat smaller and they will work in teams."

The change is the product of a joint effort last year between the administration and students to reform the residential advising system.

The student-run Residential Advising Review and Recommendation Committee (RARRC) to the residential colleges proposed a set of recommendations to the Council of Masters this spring. The Council of Masters, headed by the Dean of the College, Nancy Malkiel, reviewed the committee's report and approved some of the group's recommendations in May.

"This was really from the students," Herbold said. "It was a good process because we as administrators get to act on something that has a broad base of support."

The new "college adviser" program will be uniform among all residential college programs. Only Wilson College currently has combined the RA and MAA position into residential college advisers.

According to the RARRC, the current system overburdens MAAs, who handle about twice as many advisees as RAs. With the college adviser system, the MAA responsibilities are shared and students will have "more varied opportunities for interaction with the advisers in the college," according to the committee's report.

"We are not in any way minimizing the importance of the minority advising system," RARRC member Jeffrey Bozman '05 said. "We're changing the name but we really are maintaining all the functions of an MAA in the new position."

According to Herbold, this new system will also affect how adviser groups, also known as core groups, are assembled. Because there is no longer a specific MAA role, some officials are concerned that students of color may not feel comfortable with an adviser of non-color for minority issues, Herbold said. To prevent that situation, the administration will try to make the core groups as diverse as possible.

"We'll really look at how a team member's strength complements the others, to provide students with a more diverse group," Herbold said.

Since the new position will have expanded responsibilities, the administration hopes it will attract more applicants, Herbold said. However, there will still be the same number of advisers.

"A lot of applicants, whether students of color or not are really attracted to being RAs or MAAs and now they will not have to choose between the two," she said.