One year after the traditional first-year unit system was reorganized to distribute counselors' workloads more evenly, administrators are considering revamping the peer counseling program.
The Office of Student Life plans to review the entire peer counseling program and look at issues of staffing and compensation once a permanent Vice President of Campus Life and Student Services has been found, according to Director of Student Life Jean Joyce-Brady. The University is considering changing the responsibilities of minority peer counselors and possibly not housing MPCs within first-year units, she said.
Counselors and organizers have "seriously discussed" whether living in dorms facilitates minority peer counseling, Joyce-Brady said. MPCs have historically had both residential and campus-programming responsibilities, she said.
Most MPCs agree they need direct interaction with first-years, said Brian Lee '06, an MPC in Andrews Hall, but some counselors question whether the MPC program should be part of the co-counselor structure in conjunction with residential and women's peer counseling, he said.
MPCs are working to more clearly differentiate their roles from those of other peer counselors, he said. MPCs will continue to live in dorms but will be less involved with planning birthday parties and other social events. Attendance at events such as the Black History Month Convocation and MPC committee group meetings will no longer be mandatory for MPCs. "We've got enough meetings as is," he said.
The examination of MPCs' roles will be part of the Office of Student Life's review in the next year, Joyce-Brady said.
Last spring, the University restructured the peer counseling program to equalize the student-counselor ratio across first-year units after peer counselors complained about unbalanced workloads. In the past, there were between eight and 25 first-years per counselor, Joyce-Brady said. The restructuring - implemented this fall - led to fewer first-year units and a ratio of between 16 and 21 first-years per counselor, she said.
"Feedback in general has been positive," Joyce-Brady said. But "we fell short in terms of training peer counselors to think strategically" about working in larger units, she said. Counselors began the year expecting to get to know all the first-years in their units, an impossible task when some units have up to 80 students across multiple floors.
Joyce-Brady said counselors need to think about "carving up units" so that every student knows at least one counselor. "There is still disagreement about whether that's a reasonable approach," she said.
"You hear different things about not having enough RCs or units being too big, but in general it's a pretty good system," said Maureen Suhendra '07, who will be an RC in Unit 4 next year.
But Suhendra said she doesn't know how counselors will unify the 75 to 80 students who will be in her unit next year. "It's going to be a challenge," she said. This year's Unit 4, which spans two floors, has struggled to make unit members known to each other, she said.
Nick Bauer '07 will be an RC next year for an 80-person unit. This year, his unit in Keeney has 54 first-years. "It seems like a lot more," he said. "It'll be more difficult to get around and get to know everybody," he said.
Counselors will have to work as a team and balance their desire to get know as many students as possible with the geography of their unit, Joyce-Brady said.
Some room changes will be made next year to place counselors in more centrally located rooms within their units, Joyce-Brady said. But these changes will be constrained by the locations of singles within first-year buildings. She cited parts of Keeney Quadrangle, Emery-Woolley Hall and Morriss-Champlin Hall as particularly challenging areas.
Though initially unable to attract enough qualified applicants, the peer counseling program has filled all 79 positions for RCs, MPCs and WPCs after accepting a second round of applications, Joyce-Brady said.
Peer counseling programs were able to fill only 70 of the 79 positions available from the first batch of applicants, she said. The programs received more than 70 applications but felt that only 70 applicants met the qualifications, she said.
With nine positions open, the programs accepted a second round of applicants to fill the remaining spots, Joyce-Brady said. Between 40 and 50 students applied during the second wave, and the programs had to turn away many qualified applicants, she said.
"We're feeling great" about the final selection of peer counselors, Joyce-Brady said. There will be 26 RCs, 31 MPCs and 22 WPCs next year, Joyce-Brady wrote in an e-mail. Because many students applied to more than one program, it is not possible to say whether one program was particularly short of applicants, Joyce-Brady wrote.
Students cited several reasons why qualified applicants were scarce during the first round. Suhendra said the first round was not well publicized. Some students also decided to apply to the program after learning more about the housing lottery, she said.
Bauer applied during the second round and was accepted to the RC program. The deadline for the first round was at a point in the semester when he was still adjusting to Brown and "overwhelmed with work," he said. But once the deadline had passed, Bauer said he regretted not applying and was pleased to have a second chance.
A 25-percent pay increase for all of next year's peer counselors has also been approved, according to Joyce-Brady. Next year's counselors will receive $1,250 for the year, she said.
The pay raise was instituted after a meeting between the Office of Student Life and a group of peer counselors earlier in the semester. The peer counselors came to the meeting with three main concerns: compensation, unit size and the fact that some peer counselors in Perkins were housed in doubles, Joyce-Brady said.
In addition to receiving increased pay, next year's counselors will all be housed in singles, Joyce-Brady said.
"The pay raise is especially important for MPCs, because a lot of people of color are on financial aid," Lee said.
The coming review might also look at the possibility of a LGBT peer counseling program, according to Joyce-Brady, who said she was aware that discussions about such a program have occurred but has not received a formal proposal.
