Greetings to our Wonnacott Commons Faculty and Staff Affiliates—
Hopefully this finds you enjoying a pleasant and productive summer. As we look towards next year, we wanted to reach out to our past and future affiliates to 1) explain the commons system to newcomers or those who haven't been involved in years past; 2) update you on changes to the commons system that have been implemented this past year; and 3) invite your participation in the programming we’re now developing for the upcoming year. If you know of someone on campus who might be interested in becoming involved, please let us know.
Some things to think about: what is the commons system in practice?
What does the commons offer Middlebury students? Our overarching philosophy in a nutshell . . .
One of the things that parents dropping off their first years repeatedly express to us is a sense of security because the commons offers students a base from which to branch out, so to speak—that the college acclimates students well to their new community, and then allows them to develop their own interests and academic paths. Our work is to open up the campus community to these incoming students; to introduce them to the resources and possibilities available to them at Middlebury; to encourage independent thought, academic inquiry, and action; and to strengthen them to make these leaps on their own.
What does it mean to become a faculty/staff affiliate of a commons?
When it comes to the commons system, the notion of affiliation has purposefully been left very loose; at this point in the system’s development, that appears to be the most workable approach for our community. Those who teach First Year Seminars are, by definition, affiliates of the commons in which their seminar is housed. For other faculty and staff, affiliation is determined by personal choice. Some prefer to affiliate exclusively with one commons; others choose to participate in activities offered by a number of commons. In Wonnacott, we try to develop a warm sense of community, discovery, and conviviality while fostering affiliate relationships that allow us to support the work of our faculty colleagues, and provide faculty and staff with opportunities to share their expertise with students outside the classroom. This is a topic of great interest to all of the faculty heads; if you have ideas on affiliation that you’d like to share, we’d be very interested in hearing from you.
Commons membership for our students: how the 4/2 system works
This fall we will be moving into the second year of a fully articulated 4/2 commons system—where students live in commons residence halls their first two years at Middlebury then, as juniors and seniors, choose from the range of housing options available to them across campus while remaining members of our commons. We tend to work most closely with those students housed in Wonnacott dorms, who are at the beginning of their academic careers. When the system works most organically, students with well-developed connections to their commons continue to be involved throughout their junior and senior years, complimenting their increasing focus on their major with some informal academic mentoring of those just starting out. Upperclassmen give back in more official ways as well by taking on vital roles on our residential life staff; this year, the majority of our res life staff are Juniors who have opted not to go abroad and Seniors.
Commons Resources: How we interface with Middlebury faculty and staff
Team Staff you'll be in contact with
As Commons heads, we devote a significant part of our work life—on top of our teaching and research--to fostering a spirit of intellectual community that comprises students, staff, and faculty. Of all the commons staff, we work with perhaps the broadest set of constituencies, continually accommodating requests and offering unique opportunities for intellectual exchange. In addition, we mentor the student residential life staff, organize our students’ Sophomore Experience, and serve as faculty advisors to our commons council. We live in proximate campus housing, and use the space to host varied groups for meetings, dinners, receptions, discussions and screenings, often as frequently as three or four times a week. We hope you’ve participated one of these events before; if so, you know how valuable they can be.
Brenda Fizur, our coordinator, oversees our Commons office operations, provides administrative support for the Dean, helps facilitate the Heads’ programming, and serves as a constant in the busy lives of our students. Most often, she is the first point of contact for students; her deep personal interest in their lives and wellbeing lead many students to seek her out.
Wonnacott’s Dean, Matt Longman, works closely with students on a wide range of challenging personal and academic issues; many students value this relationship, which often begins when they are living just down the hall their first year and continues to strengthen throughout their four years at Middlebury. In addition, Matt is involved on a wide range of student life committees, including the important alcohol awareness committee; in Winter Term 2010, Matt will teach a course that draws on his academic background in student life.
To students, the most visible member of the commons staff is often their CRA (Commons Residential Advisor), a recent Midd grad who lives on a first year hall and who will serve as a link between students and the rest of the commons staff. The CRA works with a wide range of campus offices—Public Safety, the Health Center, Facilities Management, etc.—as well as being the staff member closest to the student experience. This year we are fortunate to have James Tresnor, ’09, in this position.
Budgets
Our budget, which is more limited than one might suppose, comprises three separate lines; one keeps the commons office running and student staff paid; one supports commons-wide academic and community building programming; and the last allows students to develop their own community-specific social events and to support commons-based community service initiatives and academic programming. If you have specific questions, please be in touch; we’ll gladly explain in more detail what we do with the monies we’re allotted.
Opportunities for Involvement: The Coming Year in Wonnacott
As faculty and staff affiliates, community members may get involved in a variety of ways with Wonnacott student experiences. Here are a few opportunities open to you:
The First Year
One of the foundations of the commons experience for faculty and students is the residentially-based first year seminar. This year, each member of our incoming class will live together in Battell Hall and take part in one of the following courses:
- Claudia Cooper, Images of Africa and Africa’s Self-Image
- Enrique Garcia, Introduction to Robot Culture: An Artificial Ethnicity
- Leger Grindon, Romantic Comedy: Shakespeare and the Movies
- Joyce Mao, Birth of the Cool: American Culture at Mid-Century
- Kathy Morse, Picturing Nature: Environmental Images Through Time
- David Stoll, Latin American Immigration and the American Dream
- Hector Vila, Voices Along the Way
- Jay West, Communism and Fascism
As in the past, these students will bring their classroom experiences into the residence halls and share them with peers; we have found repeatedly that this exchange of ideas becomes the foundation of academic community building.
Our First Year Counselors (FYCs), who live and work in Battell, are trained to be attuned to and to foster this developmental process. As Commons Heads, we mentor the FYCs in this work, meeting with them regularly to discuss how to anticipate and address academic issues that first years typically face. We have also traditionally involved faculty from across campus in informal conversations with FYCs on topics such as academic integrity, workload, and mentoring. Please let us know if you’d be interested in participating.
The Sophomore Year
Our sophomores will all be living in Gifford Hall, and we look forward to working with our two commons RA’s on this year’s iteration of the Sophomore Experience, programming designed to address significant questions that sophomores face: choosing majors, deciding whether or not to study abroad, thinking ahead toward applying for competitive scholarships and grants, and figuring out the best ways to make use of CSO resources before senior year. In addition to implementing this predetermined programming, we will help our sophomores explore and express their intellectual interests and work with them to develop relevant programs. We encourage interested faculty to participate in these conversations; again, if this is something that appeals to you please let us know.
Enhancing Academic Programming
One of the most valuable enrichments to campus life that the commons system can offer is to enhance programming already taking place on campus; often this takes the form of extending discussions inspired by an academic event over a meal. The kinds of intellectual conversations that take place over dinner tend to be more in depth, more unexpected, and more personal than in other more formal settings. To that end, we look forward to hosting dinners for faculty, staff and students in our home, as we have in the past. The major change we face is that we can offer campus generated board plan dinners on only Tuesdays and Thursdays; we may be able to accommodate dinners on other days of the week, but this will require the use of outside caterers and will be a more expensive venture. Don’t ever hesitate to ask us to collaborate, but know that we are doing our best to make a limited budget stretch as far as possible amongst our various student, faculty and staff constituencies; we’d like to coordinate with your departmental budgets so that we can offer as many opportunities as possible for these gatherings. Our best advice if you have an interest in hosting a commons dinner: plan well ahead and be in touch with us as soon as possible; our house calendar fills quickly and the budget, as we found last year, gets spent rather rapidly as well.
Informal Community Building
We’re also happy to report that we will be able to reinstate the Wonnacott family style dinners, albeit in a more limited fashion because of budgetary constraints. These informal social gatherings, which enable students, faculty, staff members and their families to share a meal and good conversation, have been (along with a handful of Wonnacott traditions such as the gingerbread house party and the faculty/staff social hour) an important means of building community; our first dinner is planned for early October and we hope you’ll attend. The commons council plans social and community service events that bring together intergenerational community as well.
On a personal note:
And last but not least . .sometime early this fall, we will be welcoming twins into the Evans/Nash household. We don’t pretend to know exactly what’s coming our way, but we’re excited about the changes ahead. Wish us luck . .we’ll keep you posted.
All the best,
Deb and Will
Deborah M. Evans William R. Nash
Asst. Prof, American Studies & Prof., American Studies
English & American Lit. & English & American Lit.
Heads, Wonnacott Commons