UAC marks grand opening of new office for the fall semester
The Undergraduate Advising Center’s new central office opens off the Infinite
Levy Le -- The Tech
Levy Le -- The Tech
Levy Le -- The Tech
Just in time for the new semester, the Undergraduate Advising Center’s (UAC) new home officially opened its doors to the MIT community after a summer of construction. Founded in 2023, the UAC is the Institute’s central office for holistic student advising. While departmental advisors remain essential to students’ degree requirements, the UAC’s academic advisors support “the whole student” from “matriculation to graduation.” In particular, they provide guidance with fulfilling General Institute Requirements (GIRs), finding mental health resources, and receiving classroom accommodations.
The UAC is built upon four pillars that guide its overarching goals. The Office of the First-Year (OFY) is responsible for the freshman class, encompassing orientation, first-year pre-orientation Programs (FPOPs), and first-year advising. Meanwhile, the Academic Achievement Office helps maintain student success with tutoring and student support software. The Strategic Initiatives Office is responsible for student assessment, communications, and programming for upper-level students. The newest pillar, the Office of Academic Community, Empowerment, and Success (OACES, pronounced “oasis”), which opened in August 2025 and replaces the Office of Minority Education (OME), works with first-generation and low-income (FLI) students, transfer students, and other underserved communities.
For these offices to work cohesively, the UAC decided to relocate them all to one common space located in Building 11 off of the Infinite Corridor — formerly the home of Student Financial Services (now in Building E17) and a printing center. Student input heavily inspired the design for the new UAC center. The location includes spaces appropriate for private conversations, as well as meeting rooms and enclave-like study spaces. According to Dr. Diep Luu, Senior Associate Dean and Director of the UAC, the space was designed to have a distinctly modern feel, in comparison to the adjacent “historic” Infinite Corridor.
In a statement to The Tech, Luu wrote that staff reception to the new UAC office has been “overwhelmingly positive.” Of all the design choices made for the new office, Luu noted that the most appreciated aspects are the natural lighting, open layout, and “welcoming energy” of the space. Furthermore, Luu said that the new proximity of the UAC pillars makes it easier for students to access different resources when questions span multiple pillars.
Assistant Dean in Advising Assessment and Communication Katy Warner Little said that the opening of the UAC has been “awesome,” noting that the office “lends itself very well to students being there.” In particular, Little appreciates that the new UAC office includes space for meetings between students and advisors, compared to the relative lack of space in the previous Building 7 OFY office.
The design choices for the new office were also made to reflect Luu’s vision for the UAC as a whole — one in which the UAC offers “holistic, customized, consistent, and proactive advising” and in which the office feels like “a place [students] can always come for guidance, connection, and community.”
So far, Luu believes that the new office has been successful in achieving this vision, and he hopes that the UAC “continues to be a place where no student falls through the cracks — where every student can find the people and resources they need to succeed at MIT and beyond.”