“What I Do is I am a Neighbor”: Faculty-in-Residence Perspectives on Interactions with Students

Faculty-in-residence promote positive outcomes for residential students, but most research examines faculty-in-residence (FIR) work from the residents’ perspectives. Using data from a study of 12 faculty-in-residence at nine diverse colleges and universities, we hear faculty perspectives on their interaction with students, which ranged from planned to spontaneous and extended from disengaged to delegated, delimited, and deep. Faculty who delegated their FIR responsibilities did so by assigning work to their unpaid spouses or resident assistants. Their engagement with students typically fell within four areas---academics, social, life skills, and pets/kids---and they described the outcomes of this work as mentoring, humanizing faculty, and helping students learn to navigate the university. Based on these findings, we propose a new model of student-FIR interaction that expands the understanding of how faculty work in this position and the outcomes of that work. Grounded in those findings, we make recommendations for the selection, training, and management of faculty-in-residence programs. We also found a unique gendered dynamic in the way that faculty spouses engage in FIR programming, raising questions about women’s unpaid labor.