Faculty tout benefits of living-learning communities

Jackson at Keeton House
Jason Koski/Cornell Marketing Group
Steven Jackson, associate professor of information science and house dean at Keeton House, with students.

Faculty applications sought

Faculty applications are being sought for the next house professor and dean at Flora Rose House, an appointment beginning in August 2018. The incoming house professor and dean would serve as a house fellow next year, an opportunity to learn about the position and life on West Campus. The provost’s call for nominations and additional information about the position, including open houses for interested faculty, are available on the Office of the Provost website.

Interested faculty members are encouraged to contact Ethan Stephenson, director of faculty living-learning programs, and any of the current house professors and deans. Contact information can be found on the provost site.

The job comes highly recommended. “It’s the most wonderful thing,” Thom-Levy said. “I really, truly believe it’s a terrific opportunity for any teacher to be in this environment outside the classroom, where you have a true community.”

“If you’re a very curious person, you would benefit from it,” Jackson said. “There’s actually very few places where you get a greater diversity of people and a vantage point across the full breadth of the university – and of the undergraduate experience, the entirety of the students’ lives beyond the academic experience.”

Each year, Cornell faculty members – often with their family members and pets – join students as new members of living-learning communities on North and West Campus. Faculty-in-residence live with first-year communities on North Campus, and house professors and deans live with upper-level students in the West Campus House System.

Julia Thom-Levy, associate professor of physics, is the new house professor and dean at Hans Bethe House. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s been a tremendously positive experience,” she said. “The energy and the spirit of the students are really fantastic.”

Having faculty become part of residential life on campus fosters student engagement outside of the classroom.

“It really provides an opportunity for students to develop both academically and personally, and blurs those lines in ways they are not always exposed to in their classes,” said Shorna Allred, Alice Cook House’s new house professor and dean.

“I think Cornell is such a large university – we have a lot of resources, but you can lose the closeness you have between faculty and students in a smaller liberal arts college,” said Catherine Appert, assistant professor of music and faculty-in-residence at Low Rises 6 and 7 on North Campus since 2015. “The opportunity to see students in their living space and vice versa, or have classes in your home, is quite unique at Cornell.”

Resident faculty also value the interaction with “students from all across the university,” Thom-Levy said. “It’s much more informal, and they’re interacting in meaningful ways.”

While extending the academic experience, “it’s also about building community, where students can find friendship, belonging and identity in an institution that can be large and overwhelming,” said Steve Jackson, associate professor of information science and house professor and dean at William Keeton House since July 2015.

“If we do that well, we ground and humanize the university experience for students, but we also integrate the university experience for faculty,” he said. “In the relationships I’m seeing students form with house fellows, a lot of times it has nothing to do with academic affiliation. They strike up a conversation and say they like the same types of movies, or they both like mountain biking.”

Many of the resident faculty teach Learning Where You Live courses in the residences. Allred, associate professor of natural resources, teaches Cook Community Engagement: Bridging Self, Community and World, a class that meets in her apartment with different topics and guest presenters every week. Part of the course’s aim is self-reflection for students, she said, “but also to let them see how they are part of multiple communities.”

“The recent topic was the economic proposals of the two presidential candidates,” she said. “As is often the case, you will see a biology or engineering major come up and say, ‘I never get a chance to have this type of discussion.’”

Appert’s This Week in Pop Music course is “an opportunity to look at issues of cultural appropriation, and race and sexuality and gender in a historic way,” she said. “We use pop music as an entrance into these questions. The students take on difficult topics and are expanding their worldview.”

The Bethe Ansatz course at Bethe House is designed to bring scholars from disparate disciplines together in dialogue.

Thom-Levy said graduate students on staff as graduate resident fellows in Bethe House also offer “lots of interesting programming,” including three social justice summits this fall. She said Hans Bethe was “a scientist of great integrity and civility, and that is something I aspire to on West Campus.”

Affiliated faculty and staff also initiate varied programming for the residential communities on both North and West Campus. Most programs are open to the public.

Allred said: “In programming at Alice Cook House, we seek to bridge the disciplines, but some programs are purely social. Part of it is to build social capital – so if students have a problem, they can feel comfortable and able to come to their residential student staff member.”

Shorna Allred with family
Jason Koski/Cornell Marketing Group
Shorna Allred, associate professor of natural resources and Alice Cook House Dean, with her family.

Programs at Keeton House include “Conversations at Keeton,” bringing in faculty and guest speakers; and a new “Movies That Make You Think” series. Topics range from online privacy, performance poetry and the prison-industrial complex to natural history in the Adirondacks. House fellow and professor of natural resources Cliff Kraft led the first program this fall, around a campfire during a house-sponsored hiking trip.

Three other faculty members will be joining living-learning communities next year; all currently serve as fellows. Neema Kudva, associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, is a Carl Becker House fellow and begins a term there as house professor and dean next summer.

On North Campus, Susan Daniel, associate professor of chemical engineering, is a faculty fellow in Balch Hall; and Noliwe Rooks, associate professor of Africana studies and feminist, gender and sexuality studies, is a faculty fellow in the Townhouse Community. Both will become faculty-in-residence in those communities next summer.

The faculty component of Cornell‘s living-learning initiative isoverseen by the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

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Melissa Osgood