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- Serving as a model and mentor with regard to informal house programming.
- Serving as a catalyst for the involvement of other faculty members in house activities.
- Fostering and encouraging early familiarity with the University's unique human and physical resources.
- Fostering habits of curiosity about and involvement in educational/cultural activities beyond the formal confines of the classroom and laboratory.
- Establishing a regular schedule for dining with students in campus eateries.
DETAILS:
- Serving as a model and mentor with regard to informal house programming. The idea of educational and cultural programming lies at
the very heart of what the "house" system at Duke is all about. Many first-year students will be confused or intimidated by the concept at
first, and resident faculty are in a uniquely valuable position to foster growth, confidence, and creativity in this area. They would do this, first,
by organizing on their own two or three informal programmatic activities (each one ideally involving one or two additional faculty persons) early in the
academic year in order to establish a possible model and set a certain tone, and in the process to remove much of the mystery and sense of anxiety that tend
to surround such efforts (especially in the minds of first-year students). Beyond setting an example for student residents in the house, one of the
faculty person's most important functions would be to serve as a mentor and resource person on programming to house officers and resident advisors.
This role should doubtless continue in some form throughout the academic year but is likely to be most intense and concentrated during perhaps the first half
of the first semester. The point is not to provide all the programs ready-made to the students, but rather to offer some initial examples and to work
with the house leaders and other student residents to appreciate the significant educational opportunity inherent in such informal house programming and to
recognize their own unique potential and responsibility as programmers.
- Serving as a catalyst for the involvement of other faculty members in house activities. This role lies at the core of the kind of
activity which this program is designed to promote in first-year houses. The extent and the quality of interaction which the faculty resident is
able to have with students in the house are important not only in themselves but also for their symbolic significance. Each faculty resident functions
simultaneously as individual and as proxy: first-year students use their experience with their own resident faculty member to draw conclusions and make
assumptions not only about that particular professor but about professors in general at Duke. One of the most important kinds of activity for
participants in the faculty-in-residence program is to undertake to spread and share this symbolic burden by finding ways to involve a wide variety of faculty
and administration colleagues in house activities on an ad hoc or an ongoing basis. Here individual self-interest and institutional
interest perfectly coincide. The University has declared its commitment to fostering an environment in which informal faculty-student contact becomes a
natural part of the fabric of everyday life at Duke. The undergraduate residence hall (and its immediate environs), where students themselves pretty
much set the tone and agenda, offers a setting and context for such interaction that is largely free of the limitations and conventions associated with other,
more formal or neutral, settings. Thus, we should seize on it as a particularly promising venue in which to begin to establish those habits and
expectations of interaction between first-year students and faculty that can help us to create a more cohesive community over time. And in this
particular area faculty members in residence are in a position to play a uniquely pivotal and catalytic role. They must also be expected to play a
crucial liaison function with any formal group of "faculty associates" and with any projected program of residencies by visiting scholars and/or
artists.
- Fostering and encouraging early familiarity with the University's unique human and physical resources. By deliberately refraining
from tying the faculty resident's identity too closely to his/her academic department, we hope to put him/her in a better position to be an advocate for the
widest possible exposure of first-year students to the University's unique programs, institutions, and resources. Here again, the example of curiosity
about one's environment, coupled with the sense that one's educational horizon is not restricted to the classroom or laboratory, is perhaps more powerfully
inculcated as a result of the easy informality of the residence hall setting. When new students learn, directly from faculty, about such resources as
the Primate Center, the Museum of Art, or the Duke Forest, the source of the information serves as a subtle signal that these facilities are not
marginal or peripheral to the educational venture but absolutely central to it. Participants in the faculty-in-residence program are in a particularly
favorable position to communicate this message to first-year students. It might even be possible for the faculty resident to accompany a small group
of students on an excursion to one or more of these special facilities either during Orientation or very shortly after classes begin. But the essential
faculty role is not to serve as tour guide, nor even to assure that students actually visit or take an active interest in any particular facility, but rather
to be sure that new students are at least aware of some of the unique resources available to them as well as to do all that we can to foster in students a
genuine curiosity about the physical environment in which we all undertake our daily activities.
- Fostering habits of curiosity about and involvement in educational/cultural activities beyond the formal confines of the classroom
and laboratory. One of our most important objectives as we move towards a first-year East Campus is to find new and comprehensive strategies
for impressing upon entering students that such activities as concerts, plays, films, and lectures are not frills to be indulged only when one's
"work" has been completed or when "there is nothing else to do", but rather are vital and indispensable components in a single and
integrated educational venture. All faculty have an important role to play here, but faculty members in residence are particularly well positioned to
have a real impact in this regard. When a professor during a regular class session suggests or mandates attendance at an upcoming concert or
lecture, the desire to impress the professor may outweigh other concerns and the activity may be perceived rather too closely in terms of its instrumental
value. But when a resident faculty member regularly attends such campus functions and habitually encourages students to accompany him/her, that sends a
very different message. It is a matter of opening oneself up to new experiences and of taking advantage of an unbelievable range of educational and
cultural activities that are laid virtually at our feet at little or no cost. There is probably no single more important message that we have to communicate
to students at the outset of their Duke experience. And we should see the Faculty-in-Residence program as a vehicle by which we can inculcate this
message with maximum impact.
- Establishing a regular schedule for dining with students in campus eateries. We subscribe fully to the observations and recommendations concerning dining made by the recent Task Force on Intellectual Climate. (See pp. 10-12 of the Task Force Report.) In the case of faculty members in residence, it is certainly our hope and expectation that there will be open houses as well as other opportunities for refreshment (and perhaps even serious dining) in the various faculty apartments on a fairly regular basis. But in our view, for all of the reasons detailed by the Task Force, regularly scheduled dinners (perhaps one a week) with small groups of house members (including resident advisors) in the East Campus Union would provide an element of structure to the program as well as offer a convenient and timely forum for casual conversation, taking stock, and brainstorming. As we move in the direction of more structured dining as part of the first-year student experience, it is important that we provide a mechanism by which faculty members in residence can share in this activity on a regularly scheduled basis. Such participation not only strengthens and extends the ties already cultivated within the casual precincts of the residence hall but also offers an attractive and appealing context for luring other faculty into informal interaction with student residents. In this way the educational and community-building potential inherent in the dining experience can be more fully realized.
SPECIAL NOTE:
This is certainly not an exhaustive listing and there is some unavoidable overlapping among the various categories of concern. These observations are intended as a starting point and framework for discussion as we attempt to articulate a clear set of requirements and expectations in association with this program. It is absolutely clear that our ability to move towards the substantial realization of the aspirations and objectives outlined in the five areas of activity described above depends on a strong and vigorous support system of information, guidance, coordination, and funding. Participants in the program must have a clear idea of what is expected of them, and they must have the information and the human and material resources to meet the requirements of the task they are given. Their capacity to operate effectively within the first-year residential setting will also be enhanced by our working to strengthen and institutionalize the sense of partnership and shared responsibility between faculty members in residence and resident advisors.