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Re: Tutoring



Dear Michael,

At Simon Fraser University we provide services (1) and (3) on your list.
We used to rpovide (2), but we no longer do so because it was judged to be
unnecessary in our department's introductory offerings (with my dissent
from this opinion noted). We do not now and have never offered personal
tutoring paid for by the university, with the exception of the athletics
people who somehow have a budget item for the use of athletes who require
it. They claim these students need the extra help because of the extra
demands placed on their study time by training. (In my experience, which
included two years of varsity track competition, that is rarely the case.
The students who need tutoring seem to be poorer students who would need
it just as much without training demands.)

We have fifty graduate students who among them have the tiniest amount of
time to spend tutoring for extra income. The same is true of our
undergraduates, of whom we have fewer than twenty who might be able to
help introductory students. I am frequently asked by my students for
rcommendations of private tutors. I can't provide any. We tried to list
such people centrally at one time, but the list never grew to any
significant length (never more than, I think, two).

I tell students who have not already discovered it themselves that their
best assistance will be free. It is collegial interaction with their
peers in the same class. Good students are willing to include less able
students in their groups, and I claim that doing so helps the better
students too. In my view it would be absurd to set up an apparatus of
dubious value which costs resources when this free, effective resource
is still underutilized.

I am at a large, government supported institution. If you want some
information from a small liberal arts college why not give Eric a call
at Allegheny (814 332 3312 or epalmer@alleg.edu)? Just forward your
phys-l posting to him with a note attached. Of course he's in philosophy,
but he is in touch with other departments, and he even serves on search
committees for science departments (his specialty is in philosophy and
history of science).

Leigh