The College has replaced the Junior Advisor (JA) Selection Committee (SelCom) with a new JA selection process in an attempt to alleviate the administrative burden on student leaders. JAs will be able to volunteer to participate in the new process — spearheaded by Dean of First Year Students Christina Walsh and Area Coordinators Josie Catalano and Carly Rieger — though no other students will be invited to contribute.

The development of the new process is part of a larger shift in the responsibilities of the JA program from students to the College’s area coordinators, spurred by resignations from seven of the eight Junior Advisor Advisory Board (JAAB) members in March, which effectively left the program without a student-run governing body. The resignations followed heightened tensions between JAs and administrators over the College’s response to the on-campus death of a first-year student as well as years of declining interest in and criticism of the JA position. 

In recent years, members of the now-defunct JAAB and other students — brought on through an application process — would select the coming year’s JA cohort as part of the Winter Study course “JA SelCom: A Case Study in Selection Processes.” 

Throughout January, the course’s participants completed an anti-bias training, conducted interviews of applicants alongside JAs who were not on SelCom, discussed and evaluated applications, and extended offers to prospective JAs. The dean of first-year students and area coordinators offered insights throughout the process, and the dean’s office had final approval of the finalized cohort list, but Walsh wrote in an email to the Record that the office’s veto power was “more ceremonial than anything.”

“It was a very emotionally intensive and lengthy process,” said former JAAB member George Rogers ’25, who added that he stayed up until 5 a.m. on multiple occasions to complete work for the committee last year. “SelCom needed to be drastically altered in a way that made it more sustainable for the members of SelCom to do that work and do it thoughtfully and productively.”

Senior Associate Dean for Administration, Finance, and Strategy Jeff Malanson said he had heard from several generations of JAAB members that the SelCom process had placed an “overwhelming sense of burden” on them.

“It produced really great JA cohorts in most cases, so it’s not a concern about the outcome,” Malanson told the Record. “But students and staff were putting in eight-, 10-, 12-, 16-hour days in some cases during January to produce this set of recommendations.” 

Taking this feedback into consideration, Walsh, Catalano, and Rieger developed an alternative system earlier this year. After the JA application launches on Friday, the three staff members will hold information sessions for prospective JAs in November, conduct interviews with applicants alongside JAs in January, hold a “Workshop Day” for applicants who make it to the second round in February to assess their maturity and compatibility with each other, and send out offers for the position on Feb. 20. 

JAs will have the option to contribute to the information sessions, conduct and provide feedback on interviews, and assist with running workshops. JAs who participate in the interview process or the workshop will help make final decisions alongside Walsh, Catalano, and Rieger with a “goal of consensus,” Walsh wrote. 

When Walsh, Catalano, and Rieger informed JAs about the new selection process at a meeting on Oct. 22, Rieger said, many JAs expressed interest in helping design the application, writing interview questions, and creating a rubric to evaluate candidates during the workshop day.

“Their voices are considered throughout this process, but we’re also not putting pressure on students to participate,” Catalano said.

“I think it’s good that they took out a lot of the student involvement — the extremely burdensome stuff,” said Irene Yang ’26, a JA who had heard that the workload had been “unmanageable” for members of SelCom in the past. “As long as they maintain a little bit of student input in the process, it’s alright.”

“There was a lot of concern that there would be a lack of student involvement or input, and we were worried that we would have to pick between extremes of either being drained or absent,” said Chris Flores ’26, another JA. “I feel like they have struck a very reasonable compromise.”

A third JA, Alex Choi ’26 said that, while he recognized the need for staff to take on some of the administrative burden of the selection process, he had some reservations about the diminished role of students.

“What makes the JA position so unique is the fact that students pick the JAs, so I feel like that extra element of student involvement is missing,” Choi said. “Because of that, I’m a bit disappointed that [the process] is not majority-student, but it’s an understandable next step to take.”

Last year, after seven members of JAAB resigned, JAs sent a list of “action items” to improve the program for future classes to the College’s administration. Separately, 41 prospective JAs for the following year made their acceptance of the position conditional on a list of “needs” from the administration, including increased Integrated Wellbeing Services (IWS) for first-years, professional JA training, and increased funding for entries. 

In the absence of a JAAB this academic year, Catalano and Rieger have taken on the majority of the program’s administrative duties — including training and onboarding new JAs — and now meet weekly with groups of JAs, which they said has allowed them to better understand the kinds of support the student leaders need.

“In the past couple of years, I felt really disconnected from that experience and I didn’t have a week-to-week understanding of what was happening,” Rieger said. 

As College administrators begin the JA selection process, Catalano said they do not have a target size for the incoming cohort. She noted that the current cohort, which is the smallest in recent years, has nonetheless been successful. “It seems like it’s quality over quantity with this group,” Catalano said.

“It also makes it easier for us to connect with each of them individually,” Rieger added. “Of course, we’re hoping for many applicants, but I don’t think we’re overly concerned.”

[Shane Stackpole, an executive editor of the Record, currently serves as a JA and was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.]