The Office of Community and Multicultural Development (CaMD), Brace Center, Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL), and Sustainability Office have recently updated their application requirements for scholars and fellows, removing the need for students to secure a faculty advisor before applying. This change allows the application process to start in December instead of February, giving students more time to plan, research, and develop their presentations. If selected, students will be paired with a faculty advisor by the program to support their projects.
Allowing students to begin working on their projects well in advance of the summer, this change ensures that scholars have more than a year to develop their ideas instead of having to complete everything in a compressed time frame. Aquita Winslow, Dean of CaMD, shared more insight behind the decision to modify the application requirements.
“In the past, every student who applied had to get a faculty member to agree to be their mentor in the initial process. Since we may not take all of them, instead of asking all students to do that work, we are taking care of it…We don’t want you to just pick a teacher because you know them or because they’re your house counselor, we want to match you with someone who can really help you grow your skills, which is why we’re asking teachers who are interested in doing that work to volunteer and we’re going to pair you up together,” said Winslow.
As faculty advisors have to meet with their students at least once a week during summer, supervising scholars and fellows is a significant time commitment. In response to concerns about overburdening faculty and ensuring diverse faculty involvement, Winslow emphasized that the program’s new pairing process will allow students to connect with a range of faculty.
“We want to make sure that we’re giving students the opportunity to connect with different types of faculty, and we don’t want to burn faculty out as well. There are some really amazing faculty who have been in this program a long time, and those are the faculty that get tapped first. We appreciate all the work that they do, and we want to make sure that we’re honoring their time as well,” said Winslow.
Although acknowledging that the shifted requirements will help students apply, Olivia Isacson ’26, a CaMD scholar, expressed reservations about how the new application process might lead to a weaker student-mentor connection.
“I don’t completely agree with changing the faculty advisor side of the application. It’s really important to have a strong relationship with the teacher beforehand. My faculty advisor, Ms. [Camille] Torres-Hoven, [Directory of the OWHL], is part of a club that I do, the Book Club, and we had the opportunity to understand our working environment before getting involved in that… but I also understand that finding a faculty advisor is complicated, and that change might help students apply,” said Isacson.
Kristen Ma ’27 highlighted the potential challenges in maintaining the quality and credibility of applicants without faculty endorsement. Ma explained how a faculty member could speak to more dimensions that an applicant may offer.
“They’ll definitely receive more applications now that they don’t require you to go in with a faculty advisor, just because having to ask for someone else to vouch for you is a more rigorous process. I will say that makes it easier for the applicants, but if you don’t have the approval of a faculty member, you could start to question the validity of some of the applicants, because you could basically just apply with whatever you want and get a reference,” said Ma.
