Faculty Senate: Residential College Commission Report on Residential Life

Residential College Commission

University of Rochester

Residential Life Committee

Final Report of the Committee
Submitted on March 29, 1999
to the Dean of the College
with copies to the University Dean of Students
and the Dean of the Faculty

Constant learning and questioning—ideas spilling from the classroom and library into residence halls, athletic fields, and dining halls—is the cornerstone of a true residential college. A residential college is more than a college with safe, clean dormitories. In residence halls and dining halls, students should be wrestling with ideas, discovering new concepts, and challenging one another. Here they should come to know faculty, staff, and graduate students as approachable partners in the quest for knowledge, rather than as remote authority figures. This is essential if the aim of the University is to educate its students to be tomorrow’s leaders, rather than well-educated followers.

This principle is not meant to exclude off-campus students. Substantial efforts should be made to accommodate their needs. We regard residence halls as crucial to the college experience, but we also recognize the need to provide non-resident students with access to a vibrant social and intellectual community on campus. We expect that these recommendations for residential life at Rochester will enhance school spirit and contribute to richer interactions between students and faculty. All students and all faculty—those in residence and those not in residence—should benefit from this reinvigoration of campus life.

1. Freshman Housing. We recommend that the College house most first-year students in freshman-only housing. (In addition to first-year students, "freshman-only housing" would also house upperclassmen serving as resident advisers or living on special-interest floors.) The major exception to this policy would be for those first-year students who, by choice, opt instead for special-interest housing.

2. Special-Interest Housing, Academic Living Centers, and the Fraternity Quad. We propose to eliminate the longstanding distinction between special-interest housing (SIH) and academic living centers (ALC). We recommend that links between students and faculty be fostered in all organized student housing groups—on terms set by the student groups themselves, working closely with interested faculty. This will increase the academic/intellectual content of SIH (including Greek) activities, and can provide a natural avenue for increased faculty-student interaction in general. As part of this proposal, we recommend that a newly created College Committee on Residential Learning (CCRL) immediately invite applications from student groups seeking to occupy the structures currently known as Medieval House, Drama House, and Quad Annex; students who presently identify with the current Medieval House or Drama House would be reviewed on equal terms with all other student groups.

3. Faculty in Residence. We recommend that interactions between students and faculty in the residence halls should be increased in both quantity and quality. This requires not a greater number of faculty-in-residence but instead a transformation of the role of residential and non-residential faculty in residential life. We recommend that the College assume full responsibility for recruiting and rewarding these faculty and, working with the Office of Residential Life, providing them the resources and authority to play a leading role in residential life.

The spirit of inquiry and the commitment to excellence embodied in the Renaissance Plan and the Rochester Curriculum should pervade all parts of the campus. These three recommendations represent a single, integrated proposal for accomplishing this goal. In researching and writing this report, we drew on conversations with various groups of students, faculty, and staff, as well as face-to-face surveys that we conducted in dining halls. We drew also on the experiences of many other colleges and research universities.

Our recommendations address the widely held—and, in our view, accurate—perception that the University of Rochester must do more:

We believe that these two issues are closely related. Addressing these issues at Rochester is an urgent matter. While a campus can be socially alive and intellectually dead, a campus that is socially dead cannot be intellectually alive. Embodied in the Renaissance Plan is the conviction that undergraduate education encompasses all parts of the undergraduate experience. We share that conviction, and these recommendations reflect our deliberate effort to address these issues.

The President and Provost established the Residential College Commission (RCC) in February 1996. Chaired by the Dean of the College, RCC was composed of faculty, administrators, trustees, staff, and students. "The Commission’s assignment is to produce a vision and a plan for a residential college that supports a superior environment for learning, promotes and integrates intellectual and social communities, and advances the goals of the Rochester Renaissance Plan," the RCC charge stated. "The Commission’s broad purpose is to recommend ways to improve the undergraduate experience at Rochester by making the River Campus a more engaging place in which to learn and live."

Given its broad charge, RCC established six committees in the spring of 1996: First Year; Sophomore Year and Major; Student Cycle; Technology; Co-curricular; and Residential Life, Dining, and Greek Life. A seventh committee, Student Services, was organized in the fall of 1996. These seven committees functioned throughout the 1996–1997 school year. Each committee issued preliminary reports midyear and final reports at the end of the year. In addition, RCC and the Student Association Senate worked together to create the Student Government Task Force. Reflecting priorities that remained unaddressed by the 1996–1997 reports, RCC established a new set of committees for the 1997–1998 school year: Arts, Diversity, Dining, Greek Life, and Residential Life.

Established in the fall of 1997, the Residential Life Committee met weekly through the school year to collect information and formulate recommendations. We followed three routes for information-gathering. First, we held "clipboard nights" in each of the dining halls, with committee members roaming the dining halls and joining groups of students, questionnaires in hand; through this method, we gathered feedback from about three hundred students. Second, we researched the nature of residential life at several other institutions, including Princeton, Hamilton, Washington University, Cornell, Penn, Duke, Chicago, Virginia, UNC Greensboro, Harvard, and Stanford. Third, to collect additional information, gather ideas for making changes, and test possible recommendations, we convened meetings with the following Rochester constituencies:

This report reflects what we have learned from these meetings and from the experiences of other universities and colleges. These recommendations reflect more than a year’s worth of research, listening, argument, discussion, and deliberation—all focused on ways to strengthen community, school spirit, and student-faculty linkages.

The Residential Life Committee included two faculty as well as the Director, Associate Director, and an Assistant Director of the Office of Residential Life. (One of these faculty members is currently faculty-in-residence; both faculty members are freshman advisers.) While these five people participated vigorously in every meeting of the Committee, they did not cast votes. Student members cast every vote determining the main recommendations of this report. These student members were a diverse lot; they represented all four class years, all major residential areas on campus as well as off-campus housing, fraternities and sororities, special-interest housing and academic living centers, resident advisers and members of student government, varsity athletes and actors and community service volunteers.

1. The interaction of faculty and undergraduates outside the classroom must be improved in both frequency and depth of interaction. From our discussions with students at large and with members of student organizations, we concluded that student-faculty interactions are not at an adequate level. The College must make such interactions a priority. We recommend that the College, working with Residential Life, provide new incentives to encourage faculty in these interactions. The freshman advising system provides one successful model. Graduate students should also be brought into this "interaction space," as they are an extremely underutilized campus resource.

2. Residential life policies and facilities should enhance campus social life, with special attention to school and class spirit. Incoming freshmen, graduating seniors, and current undergraduates all express a level of dissatisfaction with social life on campus that is significantly higher than that at our peer institutions. These issues are the most frequent and profound complaints of the undergraduates, who are acutely aware of the University’s geographic isolation and the lack of spirit. The connection between social life and "enhancement of educational opportunities" is plain. While social activities do not necessarily lead to learning, they are a prerequisite for learning because they bring individuals together, often in new and exciting combinations. The fullest education occurs when individuals interact, not during solitary study. It is fair to say that while a campus can be socially alive and intellectually dead, a campus that is socially dead cannot be intellectually alive. Residence halls are central to solving this problem. The reason for this is simple: students’ primary social interactions are with their fellow residents. This is where "spirit" begins. Even an infinite diversity of campus programming cannot build spirit if students do not have emotional connections to their neighbors. School spirit evolves when students associate these connections with the physical space in which they live. Class spirit and school loyalty evolve when these connections are particularly intense among students of the same class.

Every recommendation in this report is made in the interest of advancing these two principles. In making these recommendations, we also are guided by the conviction that a diversity of residential sub-communities should be strongly encouraged. Residence halls, special-interest floors, and fraternity houses are the present building-blocks of our residential community. This diversity of housing is one of the University’s strengths, because it permits students to find the style of living most suitable for them while remaining on campus. We support this general model, which is clearly popular with students and has been carefully nurtured by the Office of Residential Life. At the same time, we argue that "sub-communities" have a strong responsibility to the overall campus community; it is especially clear that more could be done to bring a faculty-student component into their activities.

Finally, we believe that management of residence halls should be responsive to student suggestions and complaints, providing students a sense of ownership over their living spaces. Day-to-day annoyances, left unaddressed, detract from the attractiveness of residential life and undermine efforts to establish a "residential college" atmosphere. While we do not address specific issues in this report, we encourage the Office of Residential Life and the Residential Life Facilities Operations Office to continue their work in identifying and addressing legitimate concerns—and to facilitate routine correction of misinformation among the student body about residential issues.

The Committee recommends that the College create a housing system under which nearly all first-year students will be housed together to form a unified freshman community. The major exception to this policy would be for those first-year students who, by choice, opt instead for special-interest housing.

We recommend that freshman housing be centered in the buildings of the Residential Quad (with the exception of certain floors in Burton, Crosby, and Tiernan, which would continue to be reserved for single-sex and community-service communities). In addition to the buildings of the Residential Quad, freshman housing would include a few (probably the lower three) floors of Susan B. Anthony Halls. As part of this freshman housing initiative, Susan B. Anthony Halls would be redefined as a distinct community, where students could retain rooms and interact in a freshman-sophomore facility with a dining hall, lounges, and improved faculty housing. Finally, we recommend that freshman housing be phased in over a two-year period. Under this recommendation, no special-interest housing will be displaced, and the number of sophomores assigned to SBA will increase only moderately.

Freshman housing can dramatically and immediately change the residential environment on campus. We expect that freshman housing would enhance class spirit and unity, promote greater student activity, provide natural links for programming, and strengthen opportunities for out-of-class interactions between faculty and students. In implementing freshman housing, Rochester students would be brought into an academic and social community from their first day on campus—most of them in freshman housing, but some of them in special-interest housing.

We expect that unified freshman housing will enrich the learning experiences of freshmen and generate a strong sense of campus spirit and community. We also expect that it will increase the quality and extent of faculty-student interactions. However, we recognize that this plan will change the set of student housing choices, especially in the sophomore year. Therefore, our specific recommendations reflect a compromise between the ideal of uniting the entire freshman class, the desire to minimize disruption to special-interest housing and upper-class housing, and the goal of providing a vibrant residential experience beyond the freshman year.

At present, virtually all housing arrangements are open to all students as a matter of principle. As a result, the residential life of freshmen at the University of Rochester is essentially the same as that of sophomores, juniors and seniors—though there is a higher concentration of RAs on freshman floors, and D’Lions play an especially valuable role for freshmen. A de facto difference in housing patterns for freshmen arises from the housing lottery, which is based on seniority. As a result, freshmen and sophomores are kept out of Hill Court, and the number of freshmen in Anderson and Wilder Towers is limited. In terms of de jure policies, the only special treatment of freshmen is that they are not permitted to live in Greek housing or in academic living centers. Freshmen are permitted to live in special-interest housing on request. Generally, freshmen are not placed in such housing without their consent.

As a result of these housing policies, freshmen share floors and buildings with sophomores and upper-class students on the Residential Quad, in Susan B. Anthony Hall (SBA), and in Towers. In general, no residence hall presently exceeds about 40% freshmen. It has been the policy of the Office of Residential Life to promote integration of freshmen with other students in this manner. It has also been felt that integration of freshmen with older students helps maintain good order in the residence halls.

The recommendation to implement unified freshman housing at the University of Rochester is informed by the Committee’s research into housing arrangements at other institutions.

At many successful institutions, in contrast to the policy currently followed at Rochester, freshmen receive special treatment in recognition of their special status in the community. Such institutions include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, and (now) Cornell. Some of these institutions—like Harvard, Yale, and Duke—house all of their freshmen together, apart from all other students. Other institutions—like Stanford—follow a model more like the one that we propose for Rochester, where freshman housing coexists with vibrant special-interest housing.

At Yale and Harvard, all first-year students live in the heart of the campus, in some of the most desirable housing. Social and academic programs, freshman dining, and advising are localized in this area. This creates a vibrant freshman community that is the center of life for most first-year students. Most students maintain a strong identification with their class during their years in residence, and this identification continues after graduation. Duke adopted a similar system four years ago—Nan Keohane, President of Duke, recently described freshman housing as one of the great successes of her administration—and Cornell is now moving to freshman housing. A somewhat different model exists at Princeton, where freshmen and sophomores are housed together in "residential colleges" that include faculty "masters" in residence, dining halls, and other community resources. Stanford supports nine freshman-only houses as well as a variety of special-interest housing arrangements. At the University of Pennsylvania, freshman housing has proved such a success that demand now exceeds the supply; consequently, Penn is in the midst of introducing a new system of modified "residential colleges" to build on the success of freshman housing and adapt it to Penn’s housing stock.

The Committee found that unified freshman housing is not a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Every institution that places a special emphasis on freshmen does so in a unique manner. While many institutions are moving toward freshman housing, others are not. There is no universal, empirical answer to the question: "Is freshman housing beneficial?" Clearly, if there were such a simple answer, all institutions would have adopted a similar model. It is apparent that the success or failure of unified freshman housing is highly dependent on the specific circumstances of each institution. Examining the costs and benefits of freshman housing and comparing them to alternatives, the Committee recommends this model for Rochester. The consensus of the students on the Committee is that a unified freshman housing model is the optimal approach for the College at this time.

Early in our deliberations, the Committee concluded that addressing concerns with school spirit and student-faculty interactions required transforming the freshman-year experience. Though everyone on the Committee shared a belief that changes in first-year residential life would be especially beneficial, there was no immediate consensus on the best way to effect these changes. Our final proposal—to move, over two years, to freshman housing—emerged only after considerable deliberation and debate. The final proposal was adopted only after several weeks’ worth of discussion. In the course of the Committee’s discussions, several alternatives were considered. When the vote was finally taken, the student vote to move to freshman housing was unanimous. All students present at the meeting (representing a large majority of the Committee’s full student membership) gave their full support to the proposal to implement freshman housing. Some students voted to implement freshman housing immediately, while a majority voted to implement it over a two-year, phased-in process.

1. Maintaining the status quo. Currently, freshmen are scattered throughout much of University housing, with substantial concentrations in Susan B. Anthony Halls and the Residential Quad and smaller numbers in Towers. (Contrary to the popular belief that freshmen make up most of SBA, current policy limits the number of freshmen in SBA to 35–40%). Because most members of the Committee believe that school spirit and faculty interaction would benefit from residentially based, freshmen-only programming, the status quo was rejected. It hinders efforts to build class spirit and school spirit, and it makes it difficult to direct programs at freshmen in their residential spaces. The main benefit of the status quo—the "inside knowledge" that freshmen gain from living with upperclassmen—also has its costs. For every freshman who received a good course suggestion from a sophomore down the hall, there is another freshmen who was discouraged from attending a football game or a school play. Indeed, we expect that freshman housing will create incentives for freshmen to get more involved in cocurricular activities, since these will provide a crucial vehicle for interaction with upper-class students. We also expect that freshman housing will give academic departments an incentive to train upper-class students as peer advisers, who could meet with freshmen in their residence halls.

2. Adopting freshman-sophomore housing, with students "squatting" in their rooms from one year to the next. We considered a plan by which we would place one group of freshmen in Susan B. Anthony Halls, a second group in the Residential Quad, and a third group in Towers. According to this plan, students would live in the same residential area in both their freshman and sophomore years, with the option of keeping their rooms. The hope embodied in this plan is that it would create identities with three "residential colleges." We ultimately abandoned the plan because none of the three "colleges," with the partial exception of SBA, possesses the array of community spaces—dining hall, performing-arts spaces, lounges, full housing and public entertainment spaces for faculty, graduate-student apartments—necessary to creating a true "residential college" experience. Without these community spaces, we concluded, requiring students to live in these residence halls for two years would do little to create community. (While we also discussed placing students in the three sets of residence halls without any expectation that they would stay in the same area from year to year, we regarded this scenario as nearly indistinguishable from the status quo.)

3. Adopting "pure" freshman housing. The third alternative was to require all freshmen to live in freshman housing, to place freshman housing in the Residential Quad, and to relocate special-interest housing from the Quad. We rejected this proposal because of the value we place on special-interest housing. Our final proposal gives freshmen the option of choosing either special-interest housing or freshman housing for their first year of residency—and leaves all special-interest housing (including fraternities and sororities) in their current floors.

4. Introducing freshman housing as an experimental, pilot program. The fourth alternative was to introduce freshman housing on a small scale, to gauge student reaction to this experiment, then to decide whether or not to extend the experiment more widely. We rejected this option for three reasons. First, we believe that a true transformation to freshman housing will require great investments by faculty, staff, and student groups—in the form of new programming, new faculty commitments, new organizational structures—and that these investments would not be forthcoming in the absence of a permanent commitment to making this change. Second, we believe that one of the values of freshman housing is that it will include a large majority of each class, thus building unity out of a diverse entering student body—and we fear that any pilot program will necessarily introduce selection bias as well as render it impossible to build class spirit on a large scale. And third, we recognize that any current disagreement over the value of freshman housing would only be postponed, not settled, by this proposal.

5. Adopting freshman housing immediately. The fifth alternative—and the only option, apart from the successful option, to receive votes from students—was to implement freshman housing at once. While students would retain the option of living in special-interest housing instead, the transition for all other first-year students would take place immediately. Although some student members of the Committee supported immediate adoption, most felt that the process should be phased in over a two-year period, giving the scale of the change and the implementation issues involved.

The Committee feels that the plan proposed here will bring many of the benefits of a "residential college" system to campus life, while minimizing the disruption of existing communities on the campus. It sets forth a relatively modest goal (building community among the freshmen) that has a high probability of success without lavish investment in new facilities. The specific recommendations presented above seek to find a balance between the benefits of freshman housing, the costs associated with changing the status quo, the impact on sophomores and upper-class students, and the need to propose solutions compatible with the College’s existing housing stock. Particular balancing points are these:

Location. Options are severely limited by the existing housing stock. Hill Court and Towers were clearly designed with upper-class students in mind. These buildings are not intended to promote community beyond the suite or floor, and therefore are not suitable for freshman housing. SBA is too small to accommodate more than two-thirds of the freshman class, and is therefore not an attractive solution if the long-term goal is a geographically unified freshman class. Only the housing on the Residential Quad has the potential to accommodate all 900 freshmen—though only if the University begins a long-term program to create upper-class singles elsewhere on campus.

For the foreseeable future, these are the main advantages of the Residential Quad as the main location for freshman housing:

Relationship with special-interest housing. Because special-interest housing groups (including fraternities and sororities in residence halls) and the house fraternities are the cornerstones of the present-day campus community, it is vital that these groups undergo minimal adverse impact when freshman housing is implemented. Therefore, a key aspect of our recommendations is that no special-interest housing group will be forced to relocate from the Residential Quad. Additionally, representatives of the special-interest housing groups spoke eloquently of the importance of first-year students to their communities. Therefore, the proposed system allows freshmen to "opt out" of the unified freshman community if they actively "opt in" to a special-interest community. This policy helps preserve special-interest housing and is fully consistent with the goal of ensuring that all freshmen be part of a social/academic community.

On balance, we expect that freshmen housing will be a boon for special-interest housing. An energized freshman class should translate into more vibrant special-interest communities. Special-interest housing groups, especially those on the Residential Quad, will be well-positioned to recruit rising sophomores. In general, concentration of the freshman class should simplify recruiting efforts for all Greek and special-interest groups.

Community vs. Choice. The Committee is extremely cognizant of the fact that unified freshman housing has the collateral effect of limiting choice for some students. In particular, compared to existing housing patterns, it is clear that this plan will reduce the availability of housing on the Residential Quad for sophomores and increase the number of sophomores in Towers and SBA.

The Committee deliberated extensively on the impact of unified freshman housing on the sophomore class. Several alternative models that address sophomores explicitly were considered in detail. In particular, as outlined above, we considered a plan to turn Towers, the Residential Quad, and SBA into three freshman-sophomore "residential colleges." While this vision is attractive, the Committee ultimately concluded that the resources required to develop truly functional "residential colleges"—which would require separate faculty housing, new dining halls, an array of new common rooms, etc.—are entirely beyond the reach of the College at the present time. As a result, it was felt that this system would be extremely disruptive to all existing student communities with little likelihood of any benefit.

In recommending this plan for freshman housing, we believe that there are several factors that limit any adverse effects on sophomore choice:

Finally, the Committee expects that the enhancement of programming and academic linkages in SBA will permit that residence hall to approach the ideal of a "residential college." No other residence hall has the unique resources of SBA (e.g., an integral dining hall, large common spaces, and residential space for faculty and staff). The Committee expects that sophomores in SBA, energized by their freshman experiences and provided good guidance and resources, will transform this residence hall into highly desirable housing.

The only way to ensure no disruption to existing sophomore choice is to make no serious change to the existing system. This, we strongly believe, would be a mistake. There is, of course, risk entailed in moving toward freshman housing. But we regard the risks of inaction as much greater—continued apathy on campus, continued problems with school spirit, continued weak relations between students and faculty. Addressing these problems requires radical change in structure and organization. Precedents from other campuses give us a model that, properly adapted to Rochester, provide a path to fulfilling the promise of the Renaissance Plan.

Implementation of freshman housing is a challenging task that will place great demands on staff, on students and on participating faculty. Therefore, we recommend a phased approach to implementation that includes planning in 1999–2000 and a year of pilot programs (2000–2001) before full implementation in Fall 2001. We stress that the assumption underlying the pilot year is that the administration and faculty are committed to full implementation in Fall 2001. The intent of this year is to learn which policies and programs work and which do not, rather than to assess whether or not freshman housing will succeed.

We propose to eliminate the longstanding distinction between special-interest housing and academic living centers. We recommend that links between students and faculty be fostered in all organized student housing groups—on terms set by the student groups themselves, working closely with interested faculty. This will increase the academic/intellectual content of SIH (including Greek) activities and should provide a natural avenue for increased faculty-student interaction in general.

All special housing—Greek and non-Greek—should take its character from the nature of a residential college. That requires, first, evidence that this housing sustains or builds student communities and, second, evidence that this housing supports linkages between academic and non-academic realms of the College.

These are the principal features of the proposed model. These features are discussed below in greater detail:

1. Special-interest housing (SIH) will remain a student-initiated form of housing. The strength of these groups is the fact that they are organized around student interests, and are managed by students. The Residential Life Advisory Committee (RLAC) will continue to review the housing and programming of all groups in the residence halls, with input from a newly created College Committee on Residential Learning (CCRL). We recommend that RLAC adopt a more flexible set of criteria for its annual review, encouraging groups to define their own programming priorities at the start of each year within broad parameters.

2. The two existing academic living centers (ALC) will be reclassified as special-interest housing. We see no practical or intellectual justification for these interest groups to exist outside the existing rules that will govern housing, programming, and learning in other residential communities—especially with the new expectation of faculty involvement in all SIH groups.

3. The College Committee on Residential Learning (made up of faculty, students, and Residential Life staff) will assume primary responsibility for the three structures on the Fraternity Quad currently known as Quad Annex, Medieval House, and Drama House. In the fall of 1999, CCRL will invite applications from student groups seeking to occupy these spaces. In reviewing these applications, CCRL will consider both the strength of the student community and of linkages with faculty and learning. Students who currently identify with the current Medieval House or Drama House will be reviewed on equal terms with all other student groups. After placing three student groups into these houses for the 2000–2001 year, CCRL will review the three houses on an annual basis, with input from RLAC.

4. The six fraternities now housed on the Fraternity Quad will remain self-governing organizations, led by students. However, they will be encouraged to work closely with CCRL to develop ways of building bridges between the curricular and co-curricular sides of the College.

5. The current Drama House provides crucial performing arts space on a campus that is currently deficient in such space. We recommend, strongly, that the University establish performing arts spaces elsewhere on campus to compensate for the loss of space in the current Drama House. This is an urgent campus need. Until that new space exists, we recommend, strongly, that CCRL require that any new group moving into the current Drama House maintain the living room as a performing arts space accessible to any interested group of students.

Our recommendations are based on a year-long review of residential life at the University of Rochester. This set of recommendations reflects the Committee’s discussions with various student groups, faculty, professional staff, and administrators. These recommendations also reflect our understanding of findings reached in other committees regarding current successes and difficulties with various forms of housing. Other committees considering these issues include the RCC Greek Life Committee, the RCC Diversity Committee, the RCC Co-curricular Committee, and the two committees reviewing Medieval House and Drama House. Though we have attempted to incorporate insights from all these committees, we recognize that, in some instances, our conclusions differ from those reached by other committees.

Currently, special-interest housing (SIH) groups are small groups of students with shared interests who live as distinct communities on specific floors of residence halls. Some of these groups are organized around academic disciplines (e.g., Foreign Language Floor, Music Interest Floor), while others are centered on social interests (e.g., Interclass Living Center, Health and Home). The sororities, hall fraternities, Tiernan, and D’lions are forms of SIH as well.

These groups are overseen by the Office of Residential Life and reviewed annually by RLAC. In exchange for their special living arrangements, SIH groups are expected to organize specific types of programs and activities. Typically, these programs include hall programs, community service projects, and volunteer experiences.

SIH builds student community. However, outreach to the overall campus community could be strengthened. Ties to academic/intellectual life are presently weak for nearly all groups. (The relationship between the Foreign Language Floor and the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures is a notable exception.) In our meeting with them, SIH representatives expressed strong interest in improving these ties, but requested help in creating connections to faculty and graduate students. Also, SIH representatives expressed interest in having greater flexibility in defining, in advance, the specific programming expectations for their SIH.

Academic living centers (ALCs) consist of Medieval House and Drama House, both on the Fraternity Quad. These houses are overseen by the College, rather than by the Office of Residential Life. The academic focus of each house is intended to reflect, and be an extension of, the academic and research interests of the College’s regular faculty. This mission is as old as the houses, which were created for this purpose in the 1970s by the College faculty.

ALCs are not reviewed by RLAC. In exchange for their autonomous living arrangement, students in the ALCs are required to take special residential courses offered by the departments supervising the houses. These courses are supposed to connect to the ALC’s focus. But, given the special nature of these two houses, the longstanding principles of ALCs require much more than residential courses. They require active, sustained involvement by full-time faculty and departments, extending curricular priorities into the co-curricular realm, and an engaged and interested student population. At their best, ALCs have exemplified the virtues of a residential college: close contact between faculty and students and strong links between the curricular and co-curricular sides of the College.

Our meetings with students, faculty, and members of the committees reviewing Drama House and Medieval House suggest that the ALCs have had serious problems meeting these goals in recent years. The two houses have experienced chronic difficulties in filling beds and in obtaining active support from full-time faculty in their areas of academic interest. Though there have been important exceptions, regular support from the College faculty has been weak. Students have had a difficult time ensuring high-quality residential course offerings and strong faculty participation in guiding the houses.

Given that the mission of these houses depends on sustained faculty leadership—and that it is on that basis alone that these groups were traditionally distinct from SIH—we regard these concerns as serious. Without sustained faculty leadership, these groups function in isolation, without the supervision and support enjoyed by SIHs and without the responsibilities of self-governance required of the house fraternities. A full generation has now passed since the creation of Drama House and Medieval House in the 1970s. While we vigorously endorse the principle of academic linkages in residential housing, we conclude that the privileged status of the current Drama and Medieval Houses should no longer continue.

Six fraternities occupy houses on the Fraternity Quad. These six fraternities are entirely self-governing. (The remaining fraternities and all the sororities, like other SIH, occupy space in the residence halls and are overseen by RLAC.) The house fraternities appear to be the strongest community centers on campus. However, as with other SIH, ties to academic/intellectual life are weak. There is a sense that students in the house fraternities are somewhat isolated from the rest of campus. In addition, the house fraternities appear to wage a constant struggle against the stereotype of fraternities as little more than "party houses." All fraternity representatives seem motivated to improve their links with faculty and with curricular activity.

We propose that two committees share responsibility for supporting, nurturing, and evaluating Greek and other special-interest housing. Part of the responsibility of these committees will be to conduct an annual assessment of each group’s activities. However, this is not the main purpose of either committee. Rather, these committees would exist primarily to cooperate with Greek and other special-interest housing, to assist them in setting their programming priorities at the start of each year, and to work with them as they schedule and plan these curricular and co-curricular priorities. Although CCRL will support efforts by the house fraternities to enhance their links with the educational mission of the College, the six fraternities on the Fraternity Quad will remain self-governing organizations; we recommend no formal changes in the rules governing these six house fraternities.

We recommend that RLAC be continued in substantially its present form. RLAC is currently composed of students and Residential Life staff. Beginning in the fall of 1999, we recommend that RLAC invite a few members from the College Committee on Residential Learning to attend RLAC meetings as non-voting observers, including at least one or two faculty members.

We also recommend that RLAC encourage each SIH/Greek group to define its own programming priorities, including the possibility of jointly organized programming calendars. Though there is already some flexibility in RLAC requirements, the expectation still exists that each group will organize a specific number of programs for its residence hall as well as engage in community service and volunteer activity. We encourage RLAC to define just one or two forms of activity that are required of all groups—one of which must be academic in nature—but otherwise allow groups to set their own missions for the upcoming school year. If one SIH group seeks to emphasize community service activities for their year, they should be permitted to do so—even if that means reducing or eliminating their requirement for hall-based activities. And if several sororities seek to implement a broad array of programs, with some programs assigned to specific sororities and other programs overseen jointly by a group of sororities, they should be encouraged to do so.

The governing principle must be that each student group assume responsibility for setting its own priorities, with the assistance and guidance of RLAC. This principle is grounded in the College-wide idea that we do best what we like most, that learning requires passion, and that our passions are diverse. This principle requires, first, that each SIH/Greek group work closely with RLAC, in advance of the school year, to lay out its calendar for the upcoming year. It requires, second, that this group define its goals in specific terms and that these goals require an overall level of programming as substantial as that expected in past years. And it requires, third, that each group be held accountable by RLAC and by itself for its success or failure in meeting these goals.

We recommend that the Dean of the College organize in the fall of 1999—and consider chairing, at least in the first year—the College Committee on Residential Learning (CCRL), with the expectation that this committee will exist on a permanent basis. To successfully nurture academic linkages in SIH and Greek housing, this committee should include a large number of faculty and students, as well as two or three representatives from the Office of Residential Life. We recommend that the Dean of the College name at least six full-time faculty members to this committee, including at least one faculty member from each of the four main divisions of the College: Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Engineering. We expect overlap between these faculty members and the two or three living in residence as Assistant Deans for Residential Life (which is described below). At least ten students should sit on this committee; these students should include students living in SIH in residence halls, SIH on the Fraternity Quad, and traditional Greek houses on the Fraternity Quad. This committee should include at least one member with a special interest in theater.

This committee would exist to nurture linkages between Greek/SIH groups and the faculty. Each student group must decide for itself which links it wishes to pursue—whether to host a seminar in residence (with support from the University to equip a living room with chairs, a seminar table, a chalkboard, etc.), organize an invited lecture to the group, host student-faculty dinners, sponsor study groups for a large lecture course, work with an academic department to bring in outside speakers, etc. Securing a faculty adviser is a necessary, but insufficient, step for each student group.

As part of its work, CCRL must define practical ways for student groups to develop these linkages and help these student groups achieve their goals. We recognize that none of these programs can work without active involvement by students and faculty and without active support from both the College and the Office of Residential Life. CCRL would meet regularly throughout the year, helping SIH groups and Greek groups define academic goals for the upcoming year, assisting with academic/faculty links throughout the year, and evaluating the quality of programming at the end of the year. We expect that this will stimulate ideas and help SIH to recruit motivated faculty.

In addition to working with SIH/Greek groups each year, CCRL will serve as the primary contact for the nine houses on the Fraternity Quad. We recommend that the six self-governing fraternity houses establish close ties to CCRL. And we recommend that the three other houses on the Fraternity Quad meet regularly with members of CCRL as they plan and implement their annual programming. In evaluating the three SIH houses on the Fraternity Quad, CCRL should define and enforce standards consistent with those used by RLAC.

Beginning in the fall of 2000, there will be three distinct categories for Greek and special-interest housing. (These categories will exist, but in a preliminary way, in the 1999–2000 year.) The newly created College Committee on Residential Learning (CCRL) will work with all three types of housing to nurture academic-related programs. The Residential Life Advisory Committee (RLAC) will work with two of the three types of housing. These are the three categories:

RLAC will continue to supervise all SIH in the residence halls (with the exception of the nine houses on the Fraternity Quad). As part of the annual review, RLAC will receive a report from CCRL regarding the academic-related programming of each SIH.

CCRL will supervise the three groups housed in the structures currently known as Drama House, Medieval House, and Quad Annex. As part of the annual review, CCRL will receive a report from RLAC regarding the activities of the three houses. In addition to encouraging the same flexibility in programming that RLAC will support in the residence halls, CCRL should recognize the special nature of these three houses. On the one hand, this special nature requires a high level of performance from the student groups in the houses. On the other, these three student groups may appropriately choose to make house management (including maintaining a kitchen, assuming responsibility for custodial work, and/or overseeing finances) a major part of their programming.

The six fraternities already on the Quad will continue to function as self-governing organizations. Though CCRL will not conduct an annual review of their activities, we strongly urge these six fraternities to work with CCRL to develop various academic-related programs.

We recommend that these three categories remain intact for five years. Specifically, we recommend that no new group move into Category C during this period. We recommend that the Dean of the College charge either CCRL or an ad hoc committee to review this moratorium in the 2004–2005 school year. As part of the review, the committee should assess the quality of programming in the three categories of housing, the relative levels of curricular and co-curricular activity in Category B and C houses, and the success of CCRL in nurturing curricular programming. This committee may recommend either the continuance of the moratorium for a specified number of years (scheduling another review) or the immediate discontinuance of the moratorium. We urge this committee to consider any other changes that are consistent with the spirit and ambition of this report.

Our recommendations reflect the conviction that the nine houses on the Fraternity Quad are special facilities. The student groups occupying these houses hold in trust some of the finest common spaces on the Rochester campus. Our hope and expectation is that these student groups, including the self-governing house fraternities, will work aggressively to strengthen the links between their residential houses and the academic side of the campus.

The three new Greek/SIH groups on the Fraternity Quad will be reviewed annually by CCRL, with input from RLAC. To maintain residence, each of these three Greek/SIH groups must define clear goals each year, with the assistance of CCRL and RLAC, and it must meet these goals. A group that regularly fails to meet its goals will be removed from the Fraternity Quad, after receiving sufficient warning.

We recommend that CCRL lay out a general set of requirements for the three Category B houses during the 1999–2000 year and that CCRL and RLAC work together to maintain general consistency between requirements. We also recommend that CCRL specify the stages by which a SIH/Greek group could be removed from its housing on the Fraternity Quad.

A principal task of CCRL in the 1999–2000 year will be to assign groups to the three houses currently occupied by Drama House, Medieval House, and Quad Annex. As part of its review process, CCRL will receive a comprehensive report from RLAC, covering the last few years, on any existing Greek/SIH group seeking to relocate into the three houses.

Early in the fall of 1999, CCRL must announce the terms according to which it will make assignments to these houses for the 2000–2001 year. It should publicize these terms widely. These are some basic conditions that should govern the process, but we expect CCRL to articulate additional, more specific conditions:

We recommend that CCRL set a deadline for proposals at the end of the fall semester of 1999, announcing its selections early in the spring semester.

Interactions between students and faculty in the residence halls should be increased in both quantity and quality. These interactions should occur on many levels—from the casual to the formal, and from the silly to the substantial—in order to draw students and faculty together into a vibrant social and intellectual community that extends outside traditional learning spaces. To achieve this goal, we propose that the existing faculty-in-residence and scholars-in-residence programs be recast into a multi-dimensional program that promotes many forms of faculty-student interaction in the residential spaces.

In particular, the Committee feels that it is important to have a small number of key faculty living in the residence halls as active participants in undergraduate life. These faculty should be more than "faculty in residence." Rather, in coordination with Residential Life staff, they should play a leadership role in the residential areas, shaping the tenor of undergraduate life. They should be involved in recruiting and training RAs and GHRs, and should be charged with bringing other faculty and graduate students into the residence halls in a variety of modes—for example, as dinner guests, lecturers, study section leaders, or freshman advisers. This model of faculty involvement is based on successful programs that the Committee has observed at other universities.

We recommend that this effort begin with a focus on the freshman class. We suggest that the first two positions be established in the Residential Quad and SBA, simultaneous with the adoption of freshman housing in those areas. As students move from freshman housing into upper-class housing, we suggest that a third position be created to serve Towers and Hill Court.

There are three reasons for the initial focus on freshmen. First, this focus will allow the College and the Office of Residential Life to coordinate all major elements involved in the transition to freshman housing. Second, it is during the freshman year that students learn how they are expected to relate to faculty, their peers, and the College community as a whole. Freshmen are especially vulnerable to the inadvertent lesson that a firm line separates learning in the classroom from life in the world; once learned, this perception is difficult to overcome. Third, by concentrating the University’s resources on freshmen, the up-front financial burden of the program is minimized. The Committee is cognizant of the fact that an FIR program that is attractive to the most appropriate faculty will be expensive. In particular, the quality of faculty apartments must be upgraded, which will displace revenue-generating student beds. In addition, substantial activities budgets must be created to support these positions.

Under no circumstances should the focus on freshmen be interpreted as a lack of commitment to faculty involvement with sophomores, juniors and seniors. On the contrary, we anticipate that students who have been exposed to a vibrant culture of student/faculty interaction as freshmen will be better equipped to initiate and expect such interactions in subsequent years. Moreover, we expect that this model will be extended to upper-class housing within two years.

These recommendations follow directly from one of the key findings of the Committee: students and faculty desire stronger interactions with one another outside the classroom. However, many members of both groups find it awkward to initiate such interactions. Furthermore, most faculty are extremely detached from student life. The Committee has concluded that an effective way to lower the barriers between these groups is to establish a culture of vibrant student/faculty interaction in the residence halls during the freshman year.

The College must play an active role in recruiting the most dynamic and qualified faculty for this effort. The existing faculty-in-residence and scholars-in-residence programs, while laudable in intent, have existed wholly under the administration of the Office of Residential Life. As a result, these programs have been unable to offer the material and non-material incentives that are meaningful to the most committed faculty. The College must assume the leading role in assigning and overseeing faculty in residence if this expanded program is to succeed.

Under the present FIR program, about six faculty reside in apartments in Hoeing, Crosby, Lovejoy, Towers and Hill Court. In return for rent-free housing, faculty are expected to initiate three programs each semester. Faculty are selected for this position by the Office of Residential Life.

Based on its interviews with students, the Committee has concluded that the existing FIR program is essentially invisible to most of the student body. Many students are unaware that the program exists. Most others are peripherally aware that faculty live in some of the residence halls, but have no interaction with them and do not understand the purpose of the program. Clearly, the present FIR program has, at best marginal influence on campus culture and touches only a handful of students during their four years. There are many reasons for the low impact of this program. In the judgment of the Committee, the most important are the following:

1. A shortage of FIR who are tenured faculty. Most FIR are untenured, visiting or non-tenure-track faculty. Although these individuals often bring enthusiasm and fresh ideas, their inexperience with the College makes it difficult for them to have an impact. In addition, such faculty typically cannot take away enough time from their career development to pursue their roles in a meaningful way. Finally, such faculty often do not have a strong stake in the College community. Of the tenured faculty who have served as FIR, a large proportion have been "in transition" in either their personal or professional lives. While such faculty can be extremely effective, they are not ideal candidates. Faculty whose personal lives are in turmoil may not be able to devote adequate time to the position and may be poor role models. Faculty whose professional situations are in limbo also cannot make student life a high priority and are unlikely to serve in FIR positions for very long.

2. Lack of accountability and incentives. FIR are appointed to these positions by the Office of Residential Life, following an interview with Residential Life staff. However, in their professional lives, faculty are not accountable to the Office of Residential Life. Therefore, the only formal incentive for FIR to meet their obligations is a negative one: the possibility that they may lose their housing privilege. This incentive is only effective (if at all) for young faculty who do not yet own a home, or faculty "in transition." In the case of senior faculty with other housing options, such an incentive can be perceived as insulting and counter-productive. Significantly, there are no formal positive incentives to become an FIR other than free housing. While this incentive has a tangible, non-trivial monetary value, it is not a useful inducement to the ideal faculty candidates: energetic, successful, mid-career faculty who have deep roots in the College and local communities, and stability in their personal lives. Such faculty generally are not in need of free housing in a small apartment in an undergraduate residence hall.

3. Lack of a well-defined role in the Residential Life structure. At present, each residence hall is administered by an Area Director, under whom are an Assistant Area Director and a staff of Graduate Head Residents (GHRs) and Resident Advisers (RAs). This staff is responsible for the day-to-day life of students in the residence halls. Hall councils facilitate additional programming. These groups set the tone of life in the residence halls. Faculty-in-residence have no formal place in this hierarchy. The degree to which FIR are involved in the life of a residence hall depends entirely on relationships developed as the result of the individual initiative of the FIR, GHRs and RAs in each hall. Because FIR positions are unevenly distributed among the residence halls, and because there is so much turnover in all of these positions, these informal relationships are sustained with great difficulty, if at all.

4. Lack of resources. FIR are provided an activities budget which is too modest for the scope of activities required for the FIR program to have a meaningful impact on student life. In addition, important resources are completely lacking. Such resources would include a dining plan to facilitate informal student-faculty interactions over meals; apartments with enough common space to host groups of 20–30 students; and classroom space in the residence halls to facilitate residential courses.

1. Three residential faculty positions will be created. The first two positions will be based in the Residential Quad and Susan B. Anthony Halls. The third position, to be created later, would be based in either Towers or Hill Court. These positions will carry the title of Assistant Dean for Residential Life (ADRL).

2. Appointment of the first two ADRLs should be timed to coincide with the start of freshman housing. At least one ADRL should be named by the fall of 2000 (at the start of the pilot year). If both ADRLs are not named at that time, the second ADRL should be named by the fall of 2001. It is anticipated that a third ADRL, who would play a similar role for Towers and Hill Court, will be appointed in the fall of 2002, when the pilot class begins its junior year at Rochester.

3. The ADRLs will be recruited and appointed by the Dean of the College, in consultation with the Director of Residential Life. Appointments will be for a term of no less than 3 years. It is expected that the College will develop a system of incentives to recruit and retain the most attractive candidates for these positions.

4. The faculty in these positions will work closely with the Dean of the College, the Dean of Freshmen, the Dean of Sophomores, and the Director of Residential Life to set programming priorities for the Residential Quad and SBA (and, in the future, upper-class areas as well). This programming could include academic, cultural and social activities—such as weekly open houses, study breaks, outside speakers, activities promoting arts and culture, and residential courses. The three ADRLs would also be expected to encourage academic departments to conduct seminars, recitations, and other activities in residence halls. Toward these ends, ADRLs will require large programming budgets.

5. ADRLs will be charged with recruiting non-resident faculty and graduate students to participate in the academic, cultural and social programming in the residential areas.

6. The ADRLs will be involved in recruiting and training RAs and GHRs, in coordination with the Office of Residential Life.

7. Space must be made available and renovated to provide attractive living areas for the ADRLs. A suitable apartment already exists in Hoeing Hall (104). Another must be created in SBA. This is an expensive undertaking. We estimate that such an apartment will displace at least 10 undergraduate beds from SBA, leading to an estimated revenue loss of at least $40,000 per annum. Although this is not a trivial expense, the Committee feels this is an important long-term investment in improving the attractiveness of UR to undergraduates. Assuming this model is extended to upper-class housing, a third substantial apartment would need to be established in either Towers or Hill Court.

8. Existing FIR apartments in Lovejoy, Burton, Crosby, Towers, and Hill Court would be used for other faculty, staff and graduate students in residence. These faculty positions would also be appointed by the Dean of the College, for fixed terms, in consultation with the ADRL for the area.

The College should consider extending dining privileges to faculty who are eating with students, whether or not these faculty live in residence. Mealtimes are the soul of any community, the most natural arena for ongoing out-of-class interaction between students and their professors.

Finally, existing community spaces—computer rooms, modest libraries and study spaces, game rooms, and classrooms—should be improved where they exist and created where they do not. Two or three student-managed, late-night grills should be created in residence halls to foster camaraderie within residence halls. Our vision of a residential college requires an array of spaces for learning and activity to take place.

Residential College Commission Report on Residential Life

Final Report of the Committee Submitted on March 29, 1999 to the Dean of the College with copies to the University Dean of Students and the Dean of the Faculty

Contents

Final Report of the Committee
Submitted on March 29, 1999
to the Dean of the College
with copies to the University Dean of Students
and the Dean of the Faculty