A new program aimed at increasing interaction between students and faculty has received overwhelming support from professors.
The faculty associates program, part of the residential life plan unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees last December, now has more than 100 active faculty participants and more than 50 faculty on a reserve list.
"We have built an incredibly positive feeling among the faculty for this program and good momentum," said Bob Thompson, co-director of the program. "Now we have to see how the students are going to respond."
Trinity senior and Duke Student Government president Peggy Cross, who has been working closely with Thompson and co-director Jean O'barr, said that faculty support for the program has been "heartwarming."
"Of all the programs that I have worked with at Duke, this one has given me the most positive feeling," Cross said. "I am just nervous that this program is not first on the minds of students and we might not get the same response from them as we did from the faculty."
O'barr said that the program is designed to take student-faculty interaction beyond the classroom and into a less formal, more open setting. "We are interested in the total way that learning occurs," she said. "We want to think in new ways about how we use all of our time and how we think and act in a more general way."
Now that faculty have been assigned to their respective houses or quads, they will begin to make the initial contact with students to start generating program ideas. Thompson emphasized that he does not intend the program to impose interaction on students; rather, he said he hoped initiatives would grow out of a cooperative effort between students and faculty in getting to know one another. Resident advisers will help facilitate this process, he said.
But connecting faculty with students on West Campus may prove to be complicated because of the different types of living groups in a given quad, said Richard White, dean of Trinity College and vice provost for undergraduate education. White said that faculty associates might be paired with a specific house within their quad while still participating in quad-wide activities, which would allow faculty to form stronger ties with students in one specific dorm.
Initial contact between faculty associates and students will be further facilitated through the faculty in residence program, said Benjamim Ward, director of the program.
"[Faculty in residence] are there to serve as a catalyst for the involvement of other faculty. It is understood as part of their responsibility," Ward said. "It should make it easier to establish an additional faculty presence."
Central Campus is the only area that currently lacks a system for initiating contact between students and faculty associates. Because there are no resident advisers on Central, Cross said that organizing the faculty associates program there most likely would occur through Central Campus DSG legislators, who will be elected Friday.
"The legislators will give us a base to work with," Cross said. "Once they are elected, the representatives will have to organize some sort of town meeting to discuss how to involve faculty associates."
As an incentive to participate in the program, faculty associates will be provided with $1,500 to support their own academic research. In addition, each associate will receive a yearly $250 supplemental meal plan to dine with students in campus eateries. Special parking passes will also be made available for faculty who are participating in program events.
Thompson said that these incentives were not intended to be overly attractive and are geared more toward helping the program get started. "We wanted to make sure that faculty were getting involved in the program for the right reason," he said.
The program will pair three faculty associates with each of the freshman dorms on East Campus, three with the cross-sectional Epworth dorm, six to eight with each quad on West Campus and eight more with Central Campus, Thompson said.
One-third of the faculty associates assigned to each dorm or quad will consist of a faculty member from Trinity College, one-third from the school of engineering and one-third will be from one of the graduate or professional schools. In addition, one-third of each faculty associate group will be female. There is currently no requirement for minority representation in the program (see related story, page 1).
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