10 PRESENTATIONS FOR 10 MONTHS
To celebrate our 10 year anniversary, we offered a learning session each month centered on the residential college experience!
Review the sessions offered below.
MONTHLY SESSIONS
Leverage the RCS Community to Build YOUR Community
June 12, 2023 @ 1pm ET
Facilitated by: Brittany McDaniel (Washington University in St. Louis)
Many young professionals know having a network is important but may struggle with how to expand their network outside their immediate environments. This session’s purpose is twofold: the first purpose is to understand and discuss how young professionals can broaden their networks intentionally, and second to provide participants space to meet new folx across the country. Participants will participate in a speed dating style activity with the goal of meeting at least one new colleague in the field they intend to continue connecting with post-session. Suggested questions will be provided for the activity.
Can We Have it All?: Unique Residential Environments within Complex Residential Systems
July 10, 2023 @ 12pm ET
Facilitated by: Matt Kwiatkowski (Carnegie Mellon University)
Come and engage in a discussion with colleagues related to the topic of the push/pull relationship between centralization and decentralization in the work of residential education. Some guiding questions include: 1) How do we create residential environments that are unique and distinct, and yet balance equity across residential systems that have multiple residential environments? 2) How do residential colleges, living-learning communities, residential curricula, and other models contribute or distract from these aims? 3) How do we coach students (particularly student staff) against “comparison culture” and help them lean into the culture they create in their own residential environment?
The Cost of a Residential College
August 10, 2023 @ 1pm ET
Facilitated by: Carl Krieger (Purdue University)
The costs of building a residential college are multi-faceted. There are the economic costs of building or renovating, the typical staffing costs of building a new program and the costs associated with integrating a faculty member into the program. There are also cultural costs and short term and long term policy costs. During this conversation we will walk through the steps of creating a residential college. As part of these steps we will delve into the costs. Whether you are new to a residential college, a residential college veteran or somewhere in between, this conversation will help you think about (or question) why you are doing your work in a certain way.
It Takes a Village to Run a Residential College: Cooperative Leadership in the Return From Covid
September 8, 2023 @ 3pm ET
Facilitated by: Laura Ammon (Appalachian State), Holly Ambler (Appalachian State), Zosephine Huffines (Appalachian State), and Reilly Kerr (Appalachian State)
“A key reason to engage in collaboration is to learn.” As a new director of an established Residential College, there are many challenges to creating a successful learning community before considering the return from the isolation of Covid-19 lockdown. This presentation will explore the value of collaboration between the director, academic adviser, graduate student assistant, and current residential college student to develop community, stability, and resilience within the structure of Watauga Residential College in the return to in-person classes and learning in the academic year 2021-22. This presentation will discuss the value of collaboration, genuinely working together towards agreement on aims, actions and outcomes in the process of rebuilding community in the wake of social and institutional changes. These collaborations have led to new structures and strategies for continuing into the future, and building a sustainable residential learning community moving forward.
How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going?
October 10, 2023 @ 4pm ET
Facilitated by: Clark Maddux (Appalachian State)
This participatory presentation will ask participants to examine the origins of their residential colleges within the context of larger national trends, and to project what might happen to their colleges in the next 5 or 10 years given national trends.
