UNIV 0123: “Practical Introduction to Peer Advising” is no ordinary Brown course.
Otherwise known as the “Meik class,” the half-credit course is co-led by three deans of the College and 12 student Meiklejohn leaders. Upon completing the course, students will “receive preference for funded peer advising positions within the College, including the Meiklejohn Peer Advising Program,” according to the course’s description on Courses@Brown.
The Meiklejohn Peer Advising Program pairs first-year and transfer students with trained peer advisors who provide advice about academics, extracurriculars, social life and more. Applications to become a Meiklejohn for the 2025-26 academic year close this Sunday.
The course was first offered in spring 2022. But last fall, Associate Dean of the College for Class-Year Advising Shaunté Montgomery worked with student Meiklejohn leaders to redesign the course to focus on “timely themes that impact the incoming cohort of students at Brown,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.
Before the redesign, some aspects of the course were “not helping students become better advisors,” said Patrick Rourke ’25, a Meiklejohn leader and a teaching assistant for UNIV 0123. The changes hope to ensure that the connection between students’ roles as future advisors and their UNIV 0123 coursework is “as explicit as possible,” Rourke added.
The course now includes new readings and assignments to better equip Meiklejohns’ leadership efforts. Additionally, students and TAs are now grouped together for discussions during lectures, “giving everyone the chance to share their ideas in a smaller setting within that lecture class,” Rourke said.
Students enrolled in the course used to complete the Meiklejohn application as their midterm. But “we found that applicants in the course were not putting together the quality of applications that we hoped they would be able to from taking the class,” Rourke explained.
Now, UNIV 0123 students are required to complete only one part of the Meiklejohn application, which will count for their midterm grade.
In place of the full application, students’ “coursework, their performance (and) their engagement in the course will determine whether or not they’re accepted into the Meik program,” said Sydney Stovall ’25, a Meiklejohn leader and UNIV 0123 TA. This change was implemented to ensure that students stay “committed and engage with the course material” throughout the semester, she said.
The course is mandatory Satisfactory/No Credit, which helps reduce student stress, said Charlotte Peterson ’28, a student in UNIV 0123.
Peterson is taking the course to better prepare as a peer advisor. “Having a really good, solid foundation with my Meik definitely inspired me to become a Meik myself,” she said.
This relationship with their own Meiklejohns has influenced many applicants’ decisions to apply to the program, “either because their peer advisors were awesome or because their peer advisors weren’t as great, and they want to make sure the next cohort of incoming students has more robust support,” Stovall said.
Of the 74 students enrolled in the course, just over 80% are first-years, according to Courses@Brown.
Samyak Jain ’28 added that the course is “very contextualized to your experience at Brown” and encourages students to reflect on their college experience, he said.
UNIV 0123 “shouldn’t be seen as an easy half credit (course), or it shouldn’t be seen as a quick way to make money,” Jain said. It is “a class that would only exist at an institution like Brown, where peer advising, mentoring and your relationships are paid so much attention to and are valued so much.”
But many of the over 300 Meiklejohns did not take UNIV 0123.
Tej Tummala ’25, who is in his second year as a Meiklejohn, “actually did not consider becoming a Meik until I received notice that the application was open,” he wrote in an email to The Herald.
“By then, of course, it was too late to take UNIV 0123,” he added. But Tummala felt that the training that accepted Meiklejohns received at the beginning of the school year “fully prepared” him for the role.
Similarly, Amber Zhao ’27 felt “well equipped as someone who didn’t take UNIV 0123,” she said, adding that she learned a lot throughout the role itself.
She first found out about UNIV 0123 while filling out her Meiklejohn application, which asked if she took the course. “The things learned in UNIV might be helpful for a Meik,” Zhao said, “but I feel like it doesn’t prevent someone from being a good Meik.”
Kate Rowberry is a senior staff writer at The Herald.
