The Advising of Nonmajors
The DUS and the departmental advisers have the important and substantial task of advising interested nonmajors, especially freshmen and sophomores, about the department's courses and programs. Some departments have developed systematic methods of such advising, such as holding a meeting at the beginning of the fall term for students tentatively interested in entering the major, but for the most part the DUS and departmental representative respond to the initiative of individual students who make inquiries.
Freshmen are advised by faculty advisers drawn from the fellowships of their residential colleges. These advisers are assigned by the dean of the residential college. At registration in the fall term the Dean's Office supplies the freshman faculty advisers with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all directors of undergraduate studies. [The current list of directors of undergraduate studies can be found on line on the Yale College Web site.] Thus you may expect questions at that time and at the beginning of the spring term from freshman faculty advisers and from freshmen themselves; their questions about the department's course offerings will frequently concern matters of placement. Freshmen are also encouraged to consult departmental advisers, if your program has them, about any matter connected with the department's courses or programs. You should make certain, therefore, that departmental advisers are thoroughly conversant with your department's curriculum.
The Yale College Dean's Office is in general charge of a program of sophomore advising that has the following features:
(1) Except for sophomores majoring in engineering, mathematics, or the natural sciences, whose advisers are stipulated by their departments, a sophomore may choose as an adviser any member of the faculty who is willing to counsel him or her.
(2) Sophomores are instructed to discuss their course schedules carefully with their advisers each term. In addition, each sophomore is asked to have a discussion with a member of the Yale College faculty at some point in the spring term concerning long-range academic plans, both in regard to work in the major and in regard to his or her education as a whole. Usually the sophomore discusses these long-range plans with the same member of the faculty who signs the course schedule, but the student may have the discussion with another member of the faculty.
For the most part, therefore, the freshman and sophomore advising systems do not require much initiative from you as DUS, though you and your departmental advisers should plan on responding to a fair number of inquiries from or on behalf of freshmen and sophomores, particularly at the beginning of a term. Experience has also shown that departmental advisers, especially those with offices in the residential colleges, may expect to receive a fair number of requests to be sophomore advisers.
