Undergraduate Advising Center to restructure leadership for more faculty involvement
Inaugural UAC director Diep Luu has been let go by MIT
On Dec. 2, Vice Chancellor for Graduate and Undergraduate Education (GUE) David Darmofal SM ’91 PhD ’93 emailed staff and student leaders of the Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC) about the creation of the new Faculty Director role. At the same time, former Senior Associate Dean and Director of the UAC Diep Luu was let go. His role no longer exists.
Luu joined MIT in 2022. As the UAC director, he led strategic planning for the Center, including the launch of its new offices earlier this fall, and managed its four “pillars” — Office of the First-Year, Academic Achievement Office, Strategic Initiatives Office, and Office of Academic Community, Empowerment, and Success (OACES). During a 2023 interview with MIT News, Luu shared his hopes that the UAC would allow students to be “well connected with the resources they need, when they need them, so that they can thrive and be their best and whole authentic selves.” Luu also served as interim director of OACES this fall following its launch.
Darmofal will serve as Interim Faculty Director until the role is filled permanently. In his email, he stated that the creation of this position reflects the UAC’s goal to increase faculty leadership. He believes that the future Faculty Director will bring “academic authority, experience advising students within a major, and the ability to work closely with departments as well as faculty governance on Institute-wide advising priorities.” Darmofal also emphasized that similar units, including the first-year learning communities, have an analogous faculty-led structure.
The UAC and GUE teams have already started the hiring process for the new Faculty Director. Darmofal stated that a search committee will be formed by the end of the fall semester and that he plans to announce the appointment in the spring. The UAC’s four associate deans and the rest of the senior leadership team will be supervised by the Faculty Director.
In his email and a statement to The Tech, Darmofal stressed that, despite Institute-wide fiscal stressors, the change at the UAC was not due to budgetary concerns. Luu was the only employee who was let go.
Vi Trinh ’27, an associate advisor for Dr. Luu’s cohort of first-year students, was advised by Dr. Luu in his freshman year. He praised Dr. Luu’s commitment to “know us not only as students, but as people,” citing Luu’s attention to his advisees’ extracurriculars and career goals. (Trinh, The Tech’s Junior Officer, was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.)
Trinh was “shocked” to learn that Luu would not continue as his UAC advisor. He learned of this development “not through any direct correspondence with me, but a random email sent to my advisees” without information about their future advising options. Trinh stated that the beginning of December was a particularly inopportune time to go through restructuring, as advisees typically met with Dr. Luu at this time to register for IAP and spring classes.
As of publication, Luu has not responded to The Tech’s request for comment.
Vivian Hir ’25 MEng ’26 contributed to reporting on this article.