Grappling with a huge shortage of tutors for Boston University students, the Educational Resource Center is having trouble hiring new people as it receives more requests than ever, according to staff.
In the fall 2006 semester, the ERC received 1,062 of students’ requests for tutoring sessions. This semester, the staff had already received double that by mid-October.
Because there are not nearly enough tutors to accommodate the requests, many students must wait several weeks for sessions.
“If the volume of tutor requests increases, we may need to look at how we manage the program,” said ERC Director Glenn Wrigley. “We would meet with professors and deans and form a plan if the trend continues.”
There is a greater need for tutors of math, physics and chemistry, according to the ERC website, which urges students to apply for the jobs.
ERC Assistant Director Virginia Schaffer said many factors led to the shortage, including the largest ever freshman class, the large number of tutors who graduated last year and difficulty spreading the word about the program.
“Every day is ever-changing, and we don’t want to turn students away,” Schaffer said. “There is no way to tell who to hire.”
There are 65 total tutors for biology, chemistry and math. The ERC hopes to add 15 to 20 students to these areas by the end of the semester, Schaffer said.
To become a tutor, students must pass a quiz from a professor. Tutors work for hourly pay and may teach as many students as they like, though they typically meet with students for one hour per week.
After tutors meet with several students, they receive an email from ERC staff asking if they would like to place a limit on how many people they tutor.
School of Management senior Morgan Frisoli has tutored accounting and statistics at the ERC for three years. During his first year, he said he met with only one student. This year he has five.
“I try to tutor four students because it’s four hours a week of tutoring,” he said. “I didn’t agree to take five. They gave me five before I could say it was too much.”
Frisoli said many students are turned away because they do not give the ERC enough time to set up a meeting before a test. Many students show up a couple days before an exam and mistakenly expect tutors to be ready, he said.
“If a student is really going to work with a peer, we’d like a constant and ongoing relationship,” Wrigley said.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore Sylvie Lee said she was flustered last semester when peers told her not to bother going to the ERC during the second week of classes because tutors for her class were already booked.
“It’s frustrating, especially for classes that have such a large amount of students, like chem 101,” she said. “It’s a general class, and it’s hard to meet with the professor for one-on-one time.”