In its preliminary report, the Task Force on Undergraduate Education critically examined Brown's New Curriculum, a source of pride for administrators, faculty and students alike. The task force highlighted advising as a weakness. At around the same time, Brown's Program in Liberal Medical Education program and Alpert Medical School announced advising changes. But PLME took a step in the wrong direction, announcing cuts in advising.
The PLME department exemplifies the Brown mentality on many fronts. Like the larger Brown community, we're often mocked for our flexibility and openness, and tendency to take advantage of the S/NC system. We don't have as many requirements as our peers and we often further our education outside the classroom. We're bleeding hearts who often believe in bringing ethics back to medicine. And don't get us started on universal health care.
The heart of the PLME program is its advising core. We have four outstanding advisors with medical experience outside of academia. They provide students with holistic advising, covering the personal, professional and academic fronts. One-on-one meetings are encouraged at least once a semester. Advisers make themselves readily available through e-mail and drop-in visits.
PLME students' satisfaction with their advising system is unique at Brown. Most sophomores drift in advising limbo, belonging to neither Meiklejohn nor concentration advisers. IR concentrators bemoan their one, overextended concentration adviser. In contrast, PLME students simply love their advisors. Relationships are so close that one adviser regularly invites students to her home for Thanksgiving. PLME advisers write personal recommendations, help students obtain emergency medical appointments and even give hugs when appropriate.
But the PLME advising program is being cut. Our advisers are some of the most "expensive" at the University, holding M.D. degrees and the ability to practice outside medicine. Starting in February, two deans will only be available once a week, a substantial reduction. In fact, these changes are forcing some of the deans to focus more on their work outside the University, threatening their effectiveness as advisors. To attend to students who now cannot reach their advisers, the one dean who is still fully available will hold open office hours. On a first-come first-serve basis, all PLME students can get their one-on-one time conveniently packaged in 15-minute intervals.
As PLME bridges to the Medical School, so do the changes in advising. Until recently, PLME advisers followed their students into their seventh year at Brown. This provided a continuous and solid relationship, highly valuable during the stressful years of medical school. But advisers will no longer follow their students to the Medical School. Instead, all medical students will be directed to two deans and one adviser responsible for the whole school. This advising change will be especially hard for medical students who weren't PLMEs. The medical advising "network" won't allow for the initial support needed to transition into a class where half of the students have already graduated together.
These cuts have resulted in some added efficiency. PLME students are instructed to contact their Meiklejohns first, then their advisers. E-mails are sent through a triage system reminiscent of an emergency room - the e-mails go through PLME administrative assistants, the PLME Manager and finally an advising dean. This system is designed to route administrative questions away from deans, giving them more personal advising time. The deans will need this filtering - because of the cuts, one dean will only be able to check e-mail twice a week.
When changes to the advising program were announced, the reaction was violent. Even before the alarming specifics were known, dozens of PLME and medical students joined the Advising Task Force to voice their support for PLME as it is now. After only one meeting, students produced an overwhelming response. PLME students come for the guidance, freedom and personal touch that the program provides, not merely the waived MCAT. The personal aspect of PLME advising is paramount, followed by professional and academic support. In a medical system in which impersonality reigns, the old PLME advising system provided a training program that was anything but impersonal.
PLME advisers often know their students past experiences and future aspirations, where they came from and where they want to go. They hold personal meetings with their students, tackling problems in any frame of life. They are highly networked at Brown, knowing professors and deans in every department and administration. Yet somehow, the strengths in this program are being overlooked.
The irony of this decision is glaring. Brown has jump-started its advising improvements with a cutback in advising hours and availability. What may be the university's strongest advising program is being downsized instead of commended. Cutting this program is a contradictory statement to students and advisers alike. And along with the lost hours goes the faith that the recent report will improve anything at Brown, advising included.
Did Joelle Karlik '08 mention she got into PLME?
