Talking Stick - May/June 2015 - 54

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n informational catalogue for a university in the
northeastern U.S. describes their living arrangements for
students as follows: "Students live together in the college
building in constant contact with their teachers." Sound
familiar? It should, since this echoes one of the major
goals of residence life and housing programs: to create
opportunities for students to interact with faculty outside
the classroom. And we may think this is a relatively recent innovation, but in
fact the description comes from the 1893 catalogue for Harvard University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where faculty and students lived, worked,
and dined together in shared residential spaces. Today, many colleges and
universities are attempting to re-create this intimacy by establishing facultyin-residence (FIR) programs, where faculty and their families live in the
residence halls and interact daily with students.

Residence life staff continue to recognize
their own role as educators and proclaim
the value of students interacting with faculty
outside the classroom, and they welcome the
chance to find faculty who are willing to take
advantage of these opportunities. "Together
our staff and faculty have great conversations
about the role of focusing on important
student learning outside the classroom that
helps prepare students to be successful
learners inside the classroom. It is really
about creating a seamless college experience
for students," says Suzanne Price, associate
director for academic initiatives at Clemson
University in South Carolina.
Price oversees many opportunities for
faculty to engage with students outside the
classroom, including a faculty-in-residence
program, a faculty-student dining initiative,
and a faculty friends program where faculty
adopt a floor in a first-year residence hall.
Though this is now a flourishing program,
Price recalls that the ability to engage faculty
on campus wasn't always so easy. "When
we first began efforts to involve faculty
in our communities, I think there were
misconceptions about the apartments for
live-in faculty and, to some degree, a lack of
understanding of our commitment to student
54

TALKING STICK

success. In the first few years, I had many
conversations about whether or not faculty
would have to use communal showers or
document residents for policy violations. But
after one year of having faculty-in-residence,
we were able to dispel myths about that
position. Subsequently, as we developed our
residential experience model, we were able
to share student learning-focused goals and
outcomes for our work with residents."
Dan Cutler, director of the office of
learning communities at Syracuse University
in New York, recognizes the value of
faculty interacting with students in the
residence halls but also in other experiential
opportunities outside the halls. "For me, it's
more about engaging faculty with our learning
community students outside of the classroom
and not necessarily specific to events inside
the residence hall. We have faculty attend
retreats and field trips, go to meals with our
students, and attend campus events with our
students," explains Cutler.
Faculty already involved in residence life
programs become the best advocates for other
faculty to participate. With an ability to speak
to the experience, including rewards and
benefits, they also have the trust of and access
to other faculty that residence life staff may
Talking Stick - May/June 2015

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