Facing a 12-fold increase in tutoring hours since 2002, officials at Boston University’s Educational Resource Center say student demand has forced them to hire more tutors and even refer some students to other university programs when no ERC tutor can be found.
“We are constantly in the process of interviewing and training tutors,” ERC Director Maxine Milstein said in an October interview. “The request for tutors has increased from 500 hours in 2002 to almost 6,000 hours last year.”
The ERC, which moved from the Sargent Activities Center to the George Sherman Union last fall, offers a variety of academic support programs, such as peer tutoring and writing consultations. In the 2005-06 academic year, the ERC provided 5,935 hours of tutoring students, not including summer session tutoring. Currently, there are 182 tutors at the ERC.
“We take requests that we can’t fill and know we need to find a tutor for that person,” Milstein said. “We refer students to other people who can help them.”
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences senior Chrissy Carroll, who spends eight to 12 hours a week tutoring students at the ERC, said there is a “shortage of tutors this year, especially in science.”
“I believe I am the only tutor for nutrition and exercise physiology,” she said.
The ERC provides unassigned students with a list of alternative help resources in several departments, including math and physics.
Department chairmen are also working to make sure students have access to extra help.
“We have been trying to make sure that math [and statistics] students know about the different sources of help, including information about ERC, math [and statistics] tutoring room . . . along with information about office hours,” math instruction director Richard Hall said in an email. “Grad students tell me that the tutoring room has been very busy this year.”
Conversational Italian tutor Paolo Pironi said he noticed significantly more students seeking tutors this semester than last semester.
“I’ve heard that there are more people in the fall semester than spring,” the College of Engineering senior said.
Pironi tutors a total of 17 students in four groups in advanced and intermediate Italian for about four hours each week.
Math is also in high demand at the ERC, which currently advertises math drop-in hours on Mondays.
“I had 15 students assigned to me in two weeks,” math tutor Jake Epp, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said.
According to tutors, once they feel they have taken on enough tutees, they put themselves “on hold” and do not accept any more students.
“Once tutors get six to seven students, they ask to be put on hold,” Carroll said. “Right now, I have about 14 students assigned to me.”
Epp, who is on hold, said, “supposedly I’m supposed to have three students contacting me” about future services.
Students seeking help at the ERC said they are becoming frustrated with the high demand for tutors as well. CAS sophomore Felicity Sparks said she came to the ERC at the beginning of the semester for an organic chemistry tutor.
“They put me on a waiting list, and they just contacted me [in the end of October],” she said. “I was a little surprised there were no tutors. It’s a pretty basic course.”
Sparks said she used the ERC as a resource last year with no problems.
Tutoring is available for one-on-one and group sessions. Individual meetings last one to two hours, and group sessions meet for three hours each week.
“Groups are easier to schedule because they’re friends,” chemistry and physics tutor Eric Carniol said. “They know each other’s schedules.
“It’s pretty consistent that students will complain about tutors not being able to fit their schedules,” the CAS junior continued. “That is a product of poor planning on the students’ part. If tutors are given enough time, they’ll find time to meet.”