Bureau of Study Counsel helps students learn and develop

By Susan Peterson

It can happen to anyone: the crippling plight of writer's block, when the writing process fails even the most well-prepared student and scholar.

Charles Ducey, director of the Bureau of Study Counsel, recalls the day when a second-semester freshman spread out her notes, research cards, and library books on his office desk. The young woman was clearly upset because she couldn't begin writing her paper, which was due in a few days, although she was thoroughly prepared. A good student, she was experiencing a case of "writer's block" and needed an objective voice to help discuss her ideas. An hour later, she had organized her paper and left with the confidence to finish.

Helping students organize their work is one of the many services available at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Bureau of Study Counsel, which offers a variety of academic and psychological support services for undergraduates and graduate students who wish to improve their study habits or talk about personal issues.

Among the Bureau's most well-known programs is the Harvard Course in Reading and Study Strategies, a three-week class begun in the 1940s and one of the longest continuously running courses at Harvard. The intense course targets students who are managing heavy reading loads and challenges them to read more quickly, efficiently, and with greater comprehension. (See related story.)

Another program, peer tutoring, employs talented undergraduates who have achieved honors grades to tutor other students who could use extra help outside a course. The peer tutoring program has been around since the Bureau first started in the 1940s.

But the Bureau, located in a wood-frame house on Linden Street, is far more than a place where students seek help with their studies. Counseling and psychotherapy services are offered for students who may be feeling anxious, upset, lonely, confused, or unmotivated.

At the Bureau, students can feel safe talking about broken relationships or family crises. Or they can turn to the Bureau when struggling with eating disorders or life direction, Ducey said.

"Students sometimes come in complaining of academic difficulties, but maybe that's the Trojan horse within which they bring other things," said Ducey, a licensed psychologist who has led the Bureau for the past 11 years.

"When you're 19, you have to take on more autonomy and a sense of tending your own garden," he continued. "Some students do it very well, and some of them don't. In terms of individual counseling, freshmen are our largest constituency -- but not the majority."

The Bureau's staff includes 11 licensed psychologists and mental health counselors, along with six predoctoral psychology interns who work there for their training.

Each year at the Bureau, about 700 or 800 students -- mostly undergraduates -- get individual academic or personal counseling or therapy, which is available to them free of charge. Another 350 to 450 students take advantage of the peer tutoring services.

Ducey believes that roughly half of the students who come to the Bureau are self-referred, while the rest are referred by someone else, such as a proctor or a House tutor. Although the Bureau focuses on academic and personal counseling, the staff is in close contact with the University Health Services for medically-related mental health issues.

Every fall, during freshman orientation, the Bureau conducts a workshop that introduces incoming students to the level and types of work they will encounter at Harvard. The Bureau shares updated films, teaching tools, and newly developed study strategies with the students.

"It is a workshop that helps new students feel that they have the skills needed for this place," Ducey said. "They got here, they belong here, and we try to remind them of that. It's an enjoyable learning experience."

The Bureau is a resource, he noted, and students shouldn't feel they have to wait until they're overwhelmed to get help.

"I think it is unrealistic to think that students at Harvard have no problems," Ducey said. "We're here to support all students in their efforts to grow and develop, even students who do not see themselves as being in need of help."