English Professor Molly Hite, second from right, and her husband, University of Rhode Island Professor Frank Costigliola, third from right, gave a Dec. 16 "regression session" open house in their apartment in the Class of '18 Hall. Joining in the fun, which included finger-painting and cookie-baking, were fellow dorm residents, from left to right: Kristi Bullard '99 in engineering; Louis Silvers '99 in Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Zack Leifer, also '99 in ALS.
By Julia Bonney
When you cross the apartment threshold of professors Molly Hite and Frank Costigliola, you enter a home that is warm and inviting. The colorful paintings of their 11-year-old daughter, Molly Amanda, cover the walls of the entryway. An enormous fish tank bubbles away in the dining room and a plump rabbit munches contentedly in his hutch.
In many ways, their home is like any other. One notable difference is that this particular family shares an address with 206 Cornell students, most of whom are fresh men. The Hite-Costigliolas are part of the Campus Life Faculty-in-Residence program. They live in the Class of 1918 Hall on West Campus and interact extensively with its residents and residents of the Class of 1926 Hall, which houses the JAM (Just About Music) residential program.
Hite, who teaches 20th-century fiction, feminist theory and creative writing at Cornell, and Costigliola, on leave from the University of Rhode Island with a Gugge nheim Fellowship, are in their second year as faculty members in residence. They are unconditional in their enthusiasm for the program and are already planning to "re-up" when this two-year commitment expires.
Hite and Costigliola believe that living in
the residence hall has enriched their lives as academics. Hite explains: "I knew students in the classroom, but I had no idea what their lives were really like. You don't know that they can play incredible guitar, for instance, or that they've tutored non-English speak ing people most of their lives. There are amazing aspects of these freshmen that are completely invisible in the classroom."
Being faculty-in-residence held some surprises for the couple, the biggest of which was how much they liked it. Even after agreeing to enter the program, they had reservations. They weren't certain how living in the residence hall would affect their privacy. They under stood they would work closely with the residence hall staff, but they didn't know what to expect. They were afraid they would end up counseling students and dealing with their personal problems. As it turned out, all of their fears were unfounded.
Hite says that working with the Campus Life residence hall staff has been "a real eye-opener. They are wonderful, stable, mature, good people who are incredibly well-trained. They have impressive established procedures for handling problems, including unruly students. Our own residence hall director is such an extraordinary person, beloved and efficient. She's a real testimonial to the fact that Campus Life knows what it's doing. Because of her, we've had no trouble slipping into this job, with lots of access to students. At the same time, no one barges in on us. They view this apartment as our home."
Interaction with students takes on many forms, from poetry readings in JAM, to a group of women students meeting in the Hite-Costigliola apartment to view and dis cuss women's films. Groups of West Campus students often attend Bailey Hall con certs and Cornell theater with the family.
Hite and Costigliola are eager to see the Faculty-in-Residence program expanded. They believe the value of the program -- in its various dimensions -- lies in breaking down the barriers between living and learning. To that end, they are exploring the idea of teaching courses in the dorms, as a natural extension of what happens in the class room setting.