Dear Colleagues,
The Residential Commons program consists of four living-learning communities for first-year and sophomore students. This residential configuration is a key part of the Third-Century Plan’s vision for the student experience. Since their founding in 2015, the Residential Commons have evolved, as has the support provided to this important program. With the hire of Abby Palko, PhD, as the inaugural director of the Residential Commons program and with support from the Office of Residential Life professional staff, we also have a new commonswide understanding of the commons co-directors’ responsibilities and opportunities.
We write to share the revised articulation of the co-director’s role and to solicit nominations and, particularly, self-nominations for this important position. We are seeking faculty and staff who are interested in serving as co-directors, either beginning with the 2024–25 academic year or within the next two to three years.
The co-directors serve as the primary point of connection between their commons and their faculty or staff colleagues to encourage robust intellectual engagement. Through their presence in residential settings and at programs, they model intellectual engagement for their commons and develop individual relationships with students.
While the co-directors work together to individualize and implement curricula for their commons, the faculty co-director holds primary responsibility for academic engagement and the staff co-director holds primary responsibility for co-curricular engagement.
Faculty co-directors work with the FSEM faculty members (ordinarily 10–12 faculty members) assigned to their commons to encourage and facilitate intellectual programs within their commons; ideally, FSEM instructors will do at least one engagement activity with their commons, and the FSEMs will make use of the academic space in the commons. The faculty co-director also coordinates engagement opportunities that connect students with other faculty members (Dart Colegrove’s Passion Projects series — formerly, the Big Questions series — and Ciccone’s CONNX series are two potential models). These opportunities are particularly impactful when they introduce students to potential career paths, academic opportunities, and research interests. They are likely to be most effective if scheduled in the spring semester when students are settled into their identity as college students and are ready to start thinking about majors. Faculty co-directors might also work with colleagues to bring additional academic opportunities to the commons to give students exposure to the breadth of the curriculum as a whole and the value of the liberal arts.
Staff co-directors serve as the point of connection for the Living Learning Workshop (LLW) facilitators. They encourage facilitators to engage with their commons in support of the inclusive learning environment that the LLW modules are designed to foster in the residential halls. Staff co-directors support efforts initiated by offices such as the Shaw Wellness Institute, Career Services, the Office of Equity and Diversity, the COVE, ALANA, and Outdoor Education to bring co-curricular engagement to the commons. These efforts support the Dean of the College’s goals for the residential experience, implemented equitably across the four commons. As the Office of Residential Life focuses on students’ four-year development, these engagements will form the basis of the first-year and sophomore-year curriculum, reinforcing lessons learned in first-year orientation and the LLWs, in preparation for students’ move down the hill into their junior and senior years. Staff co-directors might also work with colleagues to bring additional academic opportunities to the commons.
Together, the co-directors lead the commons team in planning and delivering their commons’ signature event each semester. They also support a residential fellow (a part-time, live-in paraprofessional staff member) in implementing programming (active and passive) that supports students’ academic efforts (e.g. study sessions, programming around inflection points in the academic calendar like midterms, course selection, etc.).
The three-year appointment for directors is compensated with course release(s) or a stipend each academic year.
Nominations can be sent to us via deanofthecollege@colgate.edu. Self-nominations are especially welcome. If you think this is something you would like to consider in the future, we encourage you to let us know so we can work with you to plan when this opportunity might work best for your academic and personal schedule.
You may contact Abby at apalko@colgate.edu to learn more about this opportunity or see the full position description here.
Sincerely,
Lesleigh Cushing
Provost and Dean of the Faculty
Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard Professor in Jewish Studies
Professor of Religion
Paul J. McLoughlin II, PhD
Vice President and Dean of the College