Trisha Arora/Photo Editor
When members of the Class of 2017 logged onto their new EPortfolios to begin housing registration, they found many options well known to the University community, such as Green Hall and Writing Hall. Not quite as familiar, though, was the new Residential College program, also known as ResCo.
Occupying the first floor in Nicolson Six, this pilot program allows a group of 19 students to live together for two years and share a pre-major faculty advisor. One goal of ResCo is to ease the transition to college life for many students, something that attracted one resident, Liz Farrell ’17.
“[The Residential College] will give us a stronger sense of community because we will have these people who will pretty much be our family to fall back on whenever we need support,” Farrell said.
Already, the freshmen in ResCo have become close. People on the floor have started holding impromptu get-togethers, adding to the family feel of the hall.
“The first day we all hung out in the hall and brought snacks, like a little potluck,” Sara Dean ’17 said. “We have also started doing Sunday night hallway concerts because we have a ton of musical people in our hallway.”
Each ResCo student must sign a contract with a commitment to live on the hall for two years. The goal is to create an especially close community where students feel at home, while also becoming close with their faculty advisor, Adjunct Professor of Spanish Octavio Flores-Cuadra.
“We have already gotten to hang out with Professor Flores-Cuadra outside of an academic setting, and he’s working hard to set up experiences that will be interesting for us,” Dean said. “On the first day, he described himself as our guardian angel, which was really cool. It makes the University feel more accessible.”
In past years, students had limited access to faculty members through the Faculty Fellows program, designed to integrate new students into campus life. Professors were assigned to dorms in order to expose new students to faculty. Because Flores-Cuadra is only responsible for 19 students, however, the students will have more access to his time.
“I believe that students who spend more time with faculty members do better academically,” Flores-Cuadra said. “That’s a conviction of mine, and I really want to put it in practice.”
Flores-Cuadra and Chris Caines ’16, the Resident Advisor for the hall, will be running eight to ten special programming events per semester for the residents, all designed to foster a unique sense of community. During orientation, the group spent a day to go to Brownstone Park in Portland, CT, for a day of zip lining and swimming. To celebrate the first week of classes, the hall held a “Make Your Own Mexican Tacos” night, and Flores-Cuadra said he also hopes to take his residents to see a sporting event or performance in New York or Boston.
“Because most freshmen don’t have cars, they don’t usually get to leave the Middletown bubble,” Farrell said. “We will get to experience Boston and New York and see a different perspective.”
Choosing to live in the ResCo also includes a community service component. In the contracts they signed when they decided to live on the hall, students committed to participate in community service projects sponsored by ResCo.
ResCo already has plans to host a barbecue at the St. Vincent De Paul soup kitchen, allowing the residents an opportunity to expand their Middletown connections.
“I definitely think building stronger bonds with the Middletown community will be nice,” Caines said. “It’s very rare to see freshman dorms going down into Middletown and volunteering in soup kitchen-type stuff.”
In the spirit of liberal arts education, ResCo will ask students to push themselves to think in different ways. According to the ResCo contract, residents will all engage in programs that provide opportunities for intellectual, artistic, and social learning.
For Flores-Cuadra, the ultimate success of the program will be defined by how his students become active members of the community. He expects his 19 members of the Class of 2017 to remain active as they continue through his program as well as when they become upperclassmen and leave ResCo.
“I am hoping to see that these students really get involved in leadership positions,” Flores-Cuadra said. “In order to be a leader in college, you have to be somebody who really does very well in the classroom, loves the place, and really understands the system. I am hoping to see my residential advisees end up being successful in this way.”