Freshman Advising Funds
UAAP provides advising funds to you, to be spent for the entertainment, dining, and education of your advisees and associate advisors. You receive a check in September that represents an advanced allowance of $50 per advisee for academic year 2010-11, along with a Freshman Advisor Allowance Form, and a list of possible activities.
Accounting documentation
Good accounting practice requires documentation of all expenses. MIT’s auditors have advised UAAP to keep records for five years.
- Please keep your receipts, along with a record of how you spend these funds, on the Freshman Advisor Allowance Form. You keep this form for 5 years.
- You do not need to submit receipts to UAAP.
- You may print out a pdf version of the Freshman Advisor Allowance Form.
- If you do not spend all of your funds by the end of the academic year, UAAP will ask you return them, so that they may be reallocated for other advising projects.
Creative ideas for spending your advising money
Advising funds are meant to enhance the advising experience for your advising group. We hope that you use them to organize activities that facilitate group interaction and also give your advisees more opportunities for exploration of the Boston area.
While you could one take the whole group to one big ticket item, like “Blue Man Group”, we encourage you to budget so that you can do several small-scale activities. There are any number of fun and inexpensive opportunities around the Boston/Cambridge area as well as on the MIT campus. Some suggestions:
- Invite the whole group to attend a game, a match or theater performance in which one of your advisees is involved.
- MIT’s Arts Events Calendar: http://artscal.mit.edu/
- MIT’s Varsity Calendar of Events: http://mitathletics.cstv.com/calendar/events/
- Ask one of the students to reserve a dorm kitchen so that you can all cook and eat a meal together.
- Attend one of the numerous free concerts here on campus or the Boston area.
- Free tickets for arts events: http://web.mit.edu/arts/see/freetickets/index.html
- Discount tickets for events through MITAC: http://web.mit.edu/mitac/events.html
- Give your advisees a taste of fall in New England
- Apple picking and pumpkin patches: http://www.pickyourown.org/massbluerasp.htm, and http://www.pumpkinpatchesandmore.org/MApumpkins.php
- Then organize a pumpkin-carving contest
- Go Ice-skating on the Frog Pond in Boston Common
- Visit some local Cheap Eats: http://boston.citysearch.com/bestof/winners/cheap_eats
- Fire and Ice, 50 Church St, Harvard Square
- Border Café, 32 Church St., Harvard Square
- Toscanini’s Ice Cream, 899 Main St.
- Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage, Harvard Sq.
- Go sightseeing in Boston:
- John Hancock Tower
- Christian Science Center “Maparium”
- Museum of Science
- New England Aquarium
- Duck Tours (discount tickets through MITAC: http://web.mit.edu/mitac/events.html)
- Boston Harbor Cruises
- Freedom Trail: Walking tour (2-3 hours) of 16 historical sites
- North End Walking Tours, and finish up at
- Mikes Pastries
