First faculty appointed to head TTU’s living and learning villages
- EDITOR'S NOTE: Faculty and staff members are invited to bring a lunch to the brown bag seminar on the topic of living and learning villages at noon March 4 in Room 225 of Prescott Hall. Speakers include Jack Armistead, Kurt Eisen and Marc Burnett.
The walls separating a student's academic and residential worlds start tumbling down at Tennessee Tech University this fall.
That’s when TTU’s first two living and learning villages take shape at the New Hall North and New Hall South residence halls. Such communities are a system designed to give students more supportive, small-college experiences within the context of a larger university.
The appointments of two faculty members to lead the new villages mark the major next step in the evolution to blend academics with social interaction at TTU. Both Paula Hinton and Lenly Weathers say they see their role as one of mentorship and encouragement of the residents.
Hinton, associate history professor, will lead the service-leadership community. Weathers, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, will head the community focused on the environment.
The three-year, renewable appointments were announced by TTU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Jack Armistead in mid-February.
“These are two of our most effective veteran faculty members. By accepting leadership roles in the development of our first two villages, they bring both prestige and intellectual validity to this important new effort at TTU,” Armistead said.
Hinton and Weathers were selected after recommendation by the faculty head search committee, which was chaired by Kurt Eisen, interim associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and included faculty and staff members Richard Barns, Edith Duvier, Lanise Rosemond, Dustin Rawls and Katie Williams.
The living and learning villages at TTU are envisioned as places for building lifelong social connections, developing richer engagement with areas of academic study, and providing students more ownership over the circumstances of their living and learning lives.
Both faculty members will have offices in the new residence halls. They’ll serve as mentors and facilitators of the communities, but students ultimately will have a great role to play in setting the direction.
“There is now a clear break between the residence halls and the university’s academic mission. We want to blur the line and make it more of an integrated experience,” said Weathers.
Hinton agrees, and said she sees her role also this way: “I see us as mentors in some ways but also as motivators, keeping people going and keeping them focused and engaged. That’s part of the way this will help with retention, by getting students invested.”
Weathers said a major focus of the environmental living and learning community will be sustainability, which can take a variety of forms and can involve students from virtually any major.
“I really want to see where student interest is and build on that. There’s no litmus test that asks ‘Are you really green enough to get into the village’,” Weathers said.
Hinton says the same is true of the service-leadership community; students interested in community service may come from any area of study.
“None of this has to be drudgery. It’s about exciting the passion in them,” Hinton said.
Each with about 150 students, these and future learning villages at TTU are being organized around themes. Eventually, virtually every student and many faculty members will belong to one of the villages. It will take four or five years to roll out the program to create a total of 10 or so learning villages. The concept has proven highly effective in improving student retention at other universities.
Charlie Macke, TTU’s director of residential life, says about 155 rooms have been set aside in New Hall North (still under construction) and another 130 rooms are available in New Hall South. Current students can begin applying for membership in one of the villages in a few weeks and entering freshmen will begin making the requests with their residence applications.
“This is a great opportunity for students to make a difference and put their fingerprints on something that’s brand new. Ten years from now they’ll be able to look back with pride,” Macke said.
The living and learning villages concept is just one of several strategies TTU is using to achieve its goal to increase student retention by 8-10 percent. The current freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is 72 percent.
TTU also plans to establish a learning commons on the first floor of the Angelo and Jennette Volpe Library that incorporates technology and areas for group study. The university administration is conducting interviews now for the position of Dean of Library and Learning Assistance.
