Baylor University Places Faculty in Residence
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
25 October 2003 (collegiateway.org) — Many universities that are not yet establishing residential colleges are nevertheless establishing faculty-in-residence programs of one kind or another. (And by “in residence†I really do mean in residence, in campus dormitories, not simply present in the vicinity as an “Artist in Residence†might be.) One university that has just established a faculty-in-residence program is Baylor University in Texas. Baylor reports:
Dr. Walter Bradley, Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Associate Dean for Research, and his wife Ann will be among the 600 new residents of the North Village Residential Community. More specifically, the Bradley’s will serve as Baylor’s first “Faculty-in-Residence†and will reside with the expected 180 Engineering and Computer Science students living in the ECS Living-Learning Center located within one of the three North Village “houses.†Two other ECS faculty members are expected to office in the North Village Community Center…. Faculty-in-Residence has been a historical tradition at institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Stanford, and Rice. More recently, institutions such as Vanderbilt University and the University of Miami have strengthened efforts to foster greater interaction among faculty and students outside of the classroom.
Although this is a “theme-oriented†residence rather than a cross-sectional residential college, the introduction of faculty into the residential environment will certainly be beneficial, and it can be a first step toward a full collegiate organization. These new buildings at Baylor have been designed by the architects of Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas, several of whom are subscribers to the Collegiate Way mailing list. Congratulations to them and to Baylor University for working to create a comprehensive educational environment within the Baylor campus.
