Poll: Harvard Students Mostly Unhappy
2 hours, 47 minutes ago U.S. National - AP
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A long-held stereotype that Harvard undergraduates feel neglected by their professors and don't have as much fun as students at other colleges now has some data to back it up.
Student satisfaction at Harvard College ranks near the bottom of a group of 31 elite private schools, according to survey results outlined in a confidential memo obtained by The Boston Globe and reported in Tuesday's editions.
The group of 31 colleges, known as the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, or COFHE, includes all eight Ivy League schools, other top research universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, and liberal arts colleges like Amherst and Wellesley.
The 21-page memo, from staff researchers at Harvard to academic deans, documents student dissatisfaction with faculty availability, quality of instruction, quality of advising, as well as the sense of community and social life on campus.
"Harvard students are less satisfied with their undergraduate educations than the students at almost all of the other COFHE schools," according to the memo, dated October 2004.
On a five-point scale, Harvard's overall student satisfaction comes out to 3.95, compared to an average of 4.16 for the other 30 schools. Only four schools scored lower than Harvard, but the schools were not named in the memo.
The difference appears small, but some Harvard officials say they take it very seriously.
"I think we have to concede that we are letting our students down," said Lawrence Buell, an English professor and former dean of undergraduate education. "Our standard is that Harvard shoots to be the very best. If it shoots to be the very best in terms of research productivity and the stature of its faculty, why should it not shoot to be the very best in terms of the quality of the education that it delivers?"
The data in the memo comes from graduating seniors in 2002, but is the most recent available.
Harvard administrators declined comment on the survey, though they told the Globe that their internal numbers have improved since 2002.
Students complain that Harvard lacks places where students can socialize and has so many rules that it is difficult to hold a party on campus, where almost all undergraduates live.
In the classroom, students can go through four years with limited contact with professors. Large lecture classes are divided into sections headed by graduate students. Small classes are frequently taught by temporary instructors. In many cases, advisers are graduate students, administrators or full-time advisers.
"I've definitely had great professors," said Kathy Lee, a junior majoring in psychology, "but most of the time you have to chase them down and show initiative if you want to get to know them."
