The Faculty Associates/Fellows program emerged in response to the realization that there was a growing gap between faculty members and undergraduate students on college campuses. In addition, many faculty members wished to extend their interaction with students outside the academic realm. Today, many campuses across the nation have well developed faculty/student interaction programs (e.g., Cornell, Stanford, Illinois, Northwestern, and Michigan).

The Faculty Associates Program, sponsored by the Office of Residential Life is designed to provide opportunities for significant faculty-student interaction outside of the classroom setting. Associates are faculty members who agree to work with Resident Advisors and a floor of about fifty first-year students in a Residential College during the academic year.

Working as a team, Faculty Associates and their RAs can plan activities with floor residents designed to create a sense of community on that floor. These activities offer an opportunity for the residents to develop a significant relationship with a member of the faculty, thus making the faculty member an active member of the floor community. The program helps to integrate Faculty Associates into the life of the floor by allowing them to share particular interests, both academic and extracurricular, with the residents.

The faculty members involved in the Faculty Associates Program are volunteers. Faculty benefit from participating by receiving informal feedback from students that allows everyone to feel more effective in the classroom. In addition, faculty helps improve the undergraduate experience throughout their informal contacts with residents.

The Faculty Associate Program Vision

The Faculty Associate's involvement with the floor is intended to accomplish several goals:

• Provide undergraduate residents with role models or mentors and more contact with faculty members;
• Encourage residents' use of faculty as resources for information, referral, or informal advising;
• Increase student and faculty understanding of faculty and student life at WU;
• Meet the needs of faculty who want more informal contact with undergraduate students

Faculty Associates and Fellows Program

History At-A-Glance