I have the same concerns as Jules and can contribute some perspective on the experience of STEM students. I teach as a lecturer in Physical Sciences 12A, in 15 series physics labs. As a result, I work with a broad segment of the STEM student population including physics concentrators, engineers, chemists, and pre-med students. In the last year their experience has been seriously impacted by layoffs, time-caps/disposability culture, and attempts to replace human advising with AI tools. When I first got here I was struck by all the resources available to students. There are amazing safeguards in place to make sure every student has access to high-quality advising, mental health support, and academic support. The corp chose to take a lot of that away this year, particularly with the layoff of ADUS and defunding of student groups or spaces in SEAS. Many of my students were personally affected and were emotionally distressed by these changes, to the point where it affected their performance in class. They had very little notice of the layoffs of their advisors, and received an email that their replacement resource was a poorly tested AI chatbot. I am a preconcentration advisor and I recently learned that the preconcentration advising program is ending, and being replaced with centralized resources including chatbots. There is an enormous need for STEM advising here at Harvard. I have a lot to contribute as a person who has navigated a science education and a research career, which centralized resources and AI cannot replace. We cannot set up our students for success without these critical advising resources that have always been an integral part of a Harvard education.
The problem ultimately comes back to the culture of disposability for teaching faculty at Harvard. The majority of preconcentration advisors are NTT. Without us, the advising network doesn’t hold up.