University Times

"I meet with more students at this table in one afternoon than I used to see in a whole semester's worth of office hours," said Fred Gottlieb, sitting back to flex his shoulders and rub his eyes.

The biological sciences professor and two of his freshman students, Tasha Canavan and Mary Beth Kinkus, were taking a break from a tutoring session in the Cathedral of Learning Commons Room.

The sign on the dark, wooden table at which they sat read, "Bio-Help Desk." The biological sciences tutoring station, established six years ago, is the oldest and busiest of the help desks to be found these days around the Commons Room.

Other departments with Commons Room help desks include computer science, math, physics and psychology.

Students — especially ones taking large, introductory classes — stop by without appointments to seek help from faculty volunteers and, at some desks, from upperclassmen and graduate students.

Professors say they also benefit from the help desks. "Besides helping students with the [class] material, you really get to know a lot more of your students, which helps make you a better teacher," said George Novacki, who coordinates the Computer Science Help Desk. "In a large lecture class, you usually only get to know a few of your students by name. At the help desk, you can talk with them more casually, build a better rapport. They start to see you as a human being and not some aloof professor." Gottlieb sees anywhere from two to 50 students during a three-hour session at the Bio-Help Desk. Business is heaviest just before exams, Gottlieb said.

"He [Gottlieb] is always here at least three afternoons a week," said Canavan, "which helps a lot, with my schedule." The biology major said she prefers the shadowy, Gothic atmosphere of the Commons Room to bustling and brightly lit Hillman Library for studying ("It's a lot quieter here. I get very distracted at the library.") and finds it easier to ask questions at the help desk. "I don't ask questions during class. Unfortunately, I haven't overcome that fear yet. But I come here and ask a lot of them," Canavan said.

Kinkus, a pharmacy major, pointed out: "After a class, you often have to run to get to another one and you don't have time to see your professor to ask a question or get help. But you can come here." Gottlieb said: "This started because a number of us [Pitt professors] felt that our students were not taking advantage of our scheduled office hours. And there was no place they could go on their own turf to get questions answered.

"This semester, I've got about 260 or 270 students in the section of Intro to Biology that I teach, and that's overwhelming for many students. I can understand why they would be hesitant getting up in class to raise a question or asking me to repeat or explain something.

"Some kids come to the help desk to ask specific questions," Gottlieb continued. "Some kids come to be sponges and just listen to the questions and answers. But that's okay because not everybody feels comfortable asking questions. A lot of people are afraid to speak up when they don't know something, which is a shame in an academic institution because this is supposed to be a safe place to fall on your face and make a mistake, and then brush yourself off and get back up." At the nearby Psychology Help Desk, lecturer Eva Vaughan sat alone, reading. It was her first day of desk duty. "The first exam is still a week and a half off," Vaughan said, with a knowing smile. "I suspect we'll see more students coming by as it gets closer to exam time." Bruce Goldstein, an associate professor of psychology and director of the department's undergraduate programs, coordinates the Psychology Help Desk. "I look on the time I spend at the help desk as office hours in the Cathedral," he said. "Frankly, one reason I volunteer my time there is because I got tired of sitting in my office by myself. I mean, I always have work to do in my office, but it bothers me a bit that I get very little business from students stopping by during standard office hours." In contrast, the Commons Room help desk attracts walk-ins who wouldn't otherwise seek help, according to Goldstein. "Sometimes, too, students that I taught in previous classes will stop by the desk just to say hello. That's always gratifying." Occasionally, such students will take the opportunity to ask questions about upper-level courses they're currently taking, he added.

Computer science chairperson Sigfried Treu said his department's Commons Room help desk attracts many more students than a similar computer science "help room" in Alumni Hall. "Whether it's the more convenient location in the Cathedral or some other factor, I don't know. But we've increased the number of students we serve tremendously," he said.

More than most departments, computer science faces technological limitations in the Commons Room, said Novacki, who is a senior lecturer and assistant chairperson of the department. Novacki brings his own PC to the Commons Room and the help desk has a laptop machine, but sometimes tutoring sessions call for network access.

"In situations like that, I'll give students a step-by-step sequence [of commands] and then send them down to the computer lab [on the Cathedral ground floor]. I tell them, 'Come back up in half an hour and tell me how it worked. I'll still be here.'" Faculty interviewed for this story credited Iain Campbell, of biological sciences, with founding the Bio-Help Desk six years ago and proselytizing the help desk concept. Campbell is sailing around the world this term as a faculty member on Semester at Sea.

"Iain is the big guru of the help desk idea," said Goldstein. "I heard about it at a teaching seminar, where Iain talked about the advantages of tutoring students on their own turf. After that, I kind of took it upon myself to start the Psychology Help Desk." Novacki said he learned of the help desks by chance. "I was teaching a large lecture class in 232 Cathedral of Learning last spring, and I would come in to teach immediately after Iain was finishing up his class. We started to talk about the help desk concept, and he invited me to come down to the Commons Room to see how his desk was working." Individual departments try to keep informal tallies of students who use their help desks. Bio-Help Desk volunteers, for example, ask students they tutor to sign a logbook. Last fall, biological sciences amassed 30 notebook pages of signatures.

But no one is responsible for maintaining such records University-wide, noted David Brumble, associate dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"No one knows how many students are being served at the help desks," Brumble said. "We don't even know how many schools and departments have help desks or are planning to start them, either in the Cathedral or within the units themselves." Brumble said he hesitated to single out the Commons Room help desks for fear of leaving out others elsewhere on campus or slighting what he called "the long-established and excellent" tutoring services provided by the Learning Skills Center, the English department's Writing Workshop and other units.

But the associate dean praised help desk volunteers as "remarkably dedicated teachers. These professors went into this assuming they would get nothing out of it except less time and better prepared students."

— Bruce Steele