This fall, the fifth and final house of the West Campus Residential Initiative opened its doors. Soon thereafter, Cornell trustee Robert Harrison '76 endowed the post of house professor-dean of the Hans Bethe House in honor of President Emeritus Dale Corson. Professor Ross Brann took the occasion to look back at the long road in creating the unique living-learning environment for students.

Twelve years ago led by the inspirational Isaac Kramnick and the irreplaceable Edna Dugan, assistant vice president for student and academic services, the dean of students, the associate director for community development, two undergraduates, a professor emeritus and yours truly met in the dark, forbidding, windowless netherworld of the Day Hall basement. With nary a clock on the wall or any other amenity to speak of it was a place professors fear to tread.

Through hours, days, weeks, months and years of meetings, consultations and discussions, we contemplated and then designed a faculty-led house system for Cornell. On Sept. 23, 1998, we submitted our recommendations -- "Transforming West Campus" -- to Vice President Susan Murphy and then-President Hunter Rawlings. Many others subsequently joined the working group, in particular senior faculty representing each of the seven undergraduate colleges at Cornell. We produced a bold, detailed, farsighted and historic statement of May 9, 2000: "A Vision for Residential Life on West Campus."

Before that vision was articulated a little more than eight years ago, not a single faculty-led residential house could be found on the Cornell campus. Today there are five! Thanks to the strong support of the university administration, the house system now boasts 29 graduate resident fellows, 15 student assistants, five assistant deans, five house chefs, 150 house fellows drawn from the Cornell faculty and five house professor-deans.

Why would members of the Cornell faculty, such as Porus Olpodwala, Cindy Hazan, Jeff Cowie and Shirley Samuels, commit to serve as house professors? Even as we pursue new avenues of inquiry in our research, we know that undergraduate education is the core mission of a great university. We relish every opportunity to engage our students in critical thinking and to expand their intellectual horizons. The Cornell faculty is granted the extraordinary privilege of living the life of the mind and the imagination. In return we are called upon to instruct, challenge, inspire and mentor young adults on their journeys of self-discovery, just as undergraduate instructor doubtlessly inspired each of us back in the day.

The West Campus House System created precious new space at Cornell to do all this and more -- space in which leading members of the faculty and 1,800 undergraduates live, share meals and conversation, interact, debate, explore, plan programs and engage one another after class hours -- 24/7.

We even cherish the bumps along this road. During an early year at Alice Cook House, I invited the president to come address a gathering of the entire house. I rose at the house dinner the Wednesday before the visit to announce I had discovered a useful instructional video regarding proper protocol in the presence of a university president. I directed attention to the big screen in our dining room to show a brief scene from the beginning of "Horse Feathers" in which Groucho Marx as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff assumes the presidency of Huxley College and elicits a frenzied and decidedly undignified response from the senior faculty and the board of trustees.

Now, I had been waiting my entire academic career for just the right moment to use this snippet of video. But of course 98 percent of the 19- to 20-year-old residents of Alice Cook House had never seen this film, did not appreciate its manic humor and thought their Alice Cook House professor-dean had gone completely off his rocker and required immediate referral. I learned my lesson: stick to the students' cultural universe. At our first house dinner this year I appeared masquerading as Professor Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts headmaster of Harry Potter fame. The residents responded with enthusiastic laughter when I observed that Dumbledore expires in the sixth installment, and I am serving my sixth year as Alice Cook House professor.

I invite you to look at the West Campus House System Web site for just a glimpse of how the five Houses -- named for legendary Cornell faculty -- embody the idea of education as a process shared between faculty and students. You will discover, among many other varied programs, the Becker Café series, Keeton Conversations, Hans Bethe Happenings, Alice Cook House Professor Teas and this year at Flora Rose House a stream of Cornell faculty and university guests joining house professors and house fellows in informal learning and conversation with our students.

My house professor colleagues and I are deeply appreciative that the university has given us the opportunity to serve in this capacity and entrusted us with the responsibility for a venture that is surely transforming undergraduate education at Cornell.

Ross Brann is the Alice Cook House professor-dean, faculty co-chair of the West Campus House System Council; Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies; and a Stephen H. Weiss presidential fellow.