As College administrators continue the Junior Advisor (JA) program into the 2024-2025 academic year with support from current JAs who have formed the JA Training Organization (JATO), they disregard the efforts and opinions of many JAs and former and resigned Junior Advisor Advisory Board (JAAB) members who believe that the JA system should not continue without considerable time dedicated to restructuring the program. Therefore, we — a group of diverse, multiracial, working-class JAs to the Class of 2027 — seek to share our insights on the experiences that pushed us out of the program.
On Feb. 28, resigned JAAB members hosted a discussion with the current JA class to explain their motivations for resigning. In this conversation, resigned JAAB members voiced the emotional burnout that the dual JA and JAAB role has produced and how resignation would signal to the administration that this program — as it currently functions — requires an unsustainable amount of labor and necessitates significant improvements.
While a majority of current JAs extended their support to the resigned JAAB members, a clear racial and socioeconomic divide emerged within the JA class regarding how the JAAB and JA system should proceed. The resigned members, all of whom hold marginalized identities, sought to illuminate systemic challenges by resigning, which fellow JAs, many of whom did not share these marginalized identities, did not grasp. Therefore, some JAs have formed JATO — the body which now primarily assumes the responsibilities that JAAB previously held.
In the following weeks, resigned JAAB members and a majority of the general JA class met several times to discuss reforms that could improve the JAAB and JA system. We believe that we, marginalized and working-class people, already performed disproportionate amounts of unpaid labor, both emotional and physical, and lacked the time, resources, and energy to collaborate with administration to implement the necessary changes in such a short time. When it became clear that the administration and our peers would continue without addressing these concerns, we stopped meeting.
A common criticism from these JAs is that the resigned JAAB members did not provide recommendations for how the administration could materially improve the program. Our response is twofold: It should not be our responsibility to fix a broken program, and the JAs who continued to support the program precluded the administration from taking seriously the resignations and voices of JAAB and other JAs as a message of the need for a critical overhaul.
Additionally, those who stepped forward to mentor the upcoming JA class in the wake of the JAAB resignations have acted with a concerning lack of respect towards these resignations, and we have heard instances of laughter during meetings and at resignation letters. Such behavior not only undermines the gravity of the resignations but also reflects a disregard for the their peers and their concerns.
When accepting the role, we were informed by former JAs that there was a long-standing issue of marginalized and working-class JAs bearing a disproportionate burden while performing the role. Proceeding with the program next year without explicitly addressing these issues dismisses the valid apprehensions voiced by the JAAB initially elected by the JAs to the Class of 2027. To ensure the integrity and inclusivity of the JA program, it is imperative to acknowledge and address these concerns. Merely proceeding with business as usual perpetuates existing inequalities.
Regardless, next year’s JA program will not be able to proceed with business as usual, seeing that only 35 sophomores accepted the role. Following the current model of 16 entries for the first-year class, this means that 13 entries will have two JAs and three entries will have three JAs. Also, it will only take four students to drop the role between now and August — a not unusual occurrence in a typical year — for there to exist an entry with only one JA.
The increasing first-year-to-JA ratio reflects a call to action that we believe the administration has not answered. We have seen first-hand the importance of collaboration within the JA role so that we can provide adequate support for first-year students. The JA program emphasizes a strong relationship between co-JAs to promote communication and support in the entry. Therefore, the response from the administration and our fellow JAs of continuing the program with so few JAs is irresponsible. JAs need support in order to provide support.
In the absence of the backing from those in authority, it falls upon us — the frontline mentors and guides — to fill the void. Many of us, particularly those who bear marginalized identities, have shouldered the burden of mentoring students beyond our assigned cohorts. Our work is a labor of love born out of necessity, as students seek solace and guidance in the familiar faces of those who understand their struggles. The burden of care and community-building, it seems, falls disproportionately on the shoulders of women of color, a reality that speaks volumes about the entrenched biases that pervade our institution.
As we step back, exhausted and disheartened, we continue to wonder: Who will support the overworked JAs of color next year? We pose this question to emphasize that the JA program has always needed reconstruction to better support marginalized JAs. In this reconstruction, students who already bear too much responsibility should not have to be the ones to perform that labor.
We write this, first and foremost, with gratitude to our first-year students. It is because of the care we hold for our first-year students that we recognize the exigency for increased support for all students on this campus. We have watched our first-years grow into students at the College who provide care for one another while simultaneously acknowledging the shortcomings of our institution. To our first-year students: We tried. And we are so proud of you for getting through such a tough year and are grateful to have been a part of your journey at the College.
We do not intend to offer solutions to rectify the current JA program’s instability. Instead, it is our hope that articulating our story will facilitate awareness among our peers and collaboration among the administration, staff, and JAs, both of which will strengthen the program and the first-year residential experience for generations to come.
The following current and former JAs cosigned this op-ed:
Hannah Bae ’24
Jocelyn Bliven ’25
Jackson Cook ’25
Sasha Driver ’25
Quentin Funderburg ’25
Jahnavi Kirtane ’24
Sari Klainberg ’25
Maddie Menon ’25
Kunal Pal ’25
Suzanne Penna ’25
Evelyn Qi ’25
Prairie Resch ’25
Daniela Sanchez ’24
Jaskaran Singh ’25
Marta Symkowick ’25
Abed Togas ’25
Vicky Trujillo Balderas ’25
Rein Vaska ’25
Ray Wang ’25
Leah Williams ’25
Rika Yahashiri ’25
Hannah Yoon ’25
