The Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1 - 47

Relationships and Learning Beyond the Classroom

and how did different types of interactions
impact social-emotional and academic outcomes for students? By documenting the investigation of this question, we hope to provide
a glimpse into what FIR programs look like in
their infancy and how students experience the
early efforts of such programs.

volved in the residential activities of the university but do not live on campus. Faculty fellows
and faculty associates can be found on many
campuses across the United States, including
New York University, Purdue University, and
Washington University (Healea et al., 2015).
The third variation, and the focus of this paper,
is FIR programs.

CONTEXT OF FIR PROGRAMS
AND TYPOLOGIES OF FACULTYSTUDENT INTERACTION

The faculty member serving as an FIR typically has no oversight role in the residence hall
and is not responsible for supervising student
staff, intervening in student crises, or addressing student conduct issues. Instead, the role of
the FIR includes developing social, cultural, or
recreational programming intended to build
stronger connections with students and complement the work that is already being done by
student affairs professionals (Rhoads, 2009).
FIR programming, for example, has included
book clubs, film series, speaker series, outdoor
activities, music groups, and open houses
that serve the larger goal of building community and enhancing the student experience.
As Rhoads (2009) pointed out, these activities " are not just fun and games, as they often

Faculty, academic deans, and advisors who live
with and oversee residential students have historically been a distinct feature of residential
colleges. For example, beginning in the 12th
century, students in medieval Europe were organized into on-campus houses overseen by
residential masters (Healea et al., 2015). As a
second historical antecedent to present-day
FIR programs, deans of men and women were
an early form of faculty-in-residence (Herdlein,
2005; Hevel, 2016; Nidiffer, 2000; Sartorius,
2014). In the present day, residential positions
for faculty have come back to the forefront as
colleges and universities have gotten larger
and are looking for ways to connect students
and faculty outside the classroom (Healea et
al., 2015).
The current landscape in higher education
includes three notable variations of programs
designed to integrate faculty into the residential life of campus communities. The first
variation includes programs descended from
the house systems that originated in medieval
Europe. House systems were established at
Harvard University and Yale University and
endured for centuries. The second variation
includes faculty fellow and faculty associate
programs, where faculty are recruited to be in-

. . . the role of the FIR includes
developing social, cultural, or
recreational programming intended
to build stronger connections with
students and complement the
work that is already being done by
student affairs professionals.

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Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1