Mecca

KISSAM

Living in a Residential College

In the last decade, Vanderbilt University has undergone some structural (do you mean fundamental?)  changes in its approach to dorm life in hopes of cultivating a culture of community and active engagement among its members. Essentially, the residential colleges provide students with [an opportunity to live in think about removing these bracketed words]  a space where they can live and learn.

The university first made changes to the first-year living experience and created the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, a miniature campus that holds all of the first-year housing. When did the Commons open?) The first-year experience involves “house pride” as the students participate in year-long competitions in hopes of winning the Commons Cup –what do you get for winning the Commons Cup and what kinds of competitions?) Each of the ten dorms house students, resident advisers, and a faculty head of house. Each house also has a special weekly event where they provide food and fun. For example, North House has Northern Exposure where they serve pancakes every Thursday night and students are invited to eat and socialize. What are a few other examples? The houses also elect members to represent them in the school’s student government.

Vanderbilt University decided to extend this experience to upperclass students and so now there are three Upper Division Colleges: Moore, Warren, and E. Bronson Ingram. Each one has its own identity with a unique color and logo. To get into one of these colleges, students must fill out a ballot and participate in a lottery. Similar to the first-year houses, the Upper Division Colleges all have their own residential faculty. Each college also has elected representatives who work closely with the faculty head with programming for the residents. These three residential colleges are distinguished from other housing options on campus because they have dining facilities in the same building while the other ones do not.

Kissam is a building on campus that consists of Moore College, Warren College, and the Kissam Center in between the two. The Kissam Center has a dining area called The Kitchen, which serves hot food at meal times and convenient to-go options, and the Moore Great Room is essentially a dining room where students gather to eat their meals or study. Upstairs, the Kissam Center has a classroom and a multipurpose room for a variety of events. Finally, there are several study rooms and meeting rooms that serve different members of the community.

Moore College is home to a number of sophomores, juniors, and seniors. This particular residential college has two weekly signature events: Moore Monday and Moore Mixer. Moore Monday is an event where students can choose from an arrangement of ice cream and vegan-friendly sorbet while socializing with their peers. Similarly, Moore Mixer is a chance for students to enjoy different desserts, such as cakepops or cookies, or more savory food items, like samosas or build-your-own nachos. Moore Mixer is held in the apartment of Moore’s faculty head, Melissa Thomas-Hunt. Dr. Thomas Hunt works closely with Moore’s College Programming Advisory Council (CPAC) to come up with different events to encourage residents to interact with peers socially and intellectually. Part of Dr. Thomas’ job as residential faculty is to provide opportunities for students to gain professional development  and connect with different campus resources.

Sources:

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/residentialcolleges/residential-colleges/colleges/moore/moorecollege.php

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/residentialcolleges/residential-colleges/

 

Great job, Mecca. What I’d like to suggest is that you redo this with a focus on the idea of dorms being more than just dorms (think of the Latin root of the word: to sleep) where all you do is sleep and have it focus on the learning aspects – as you say, a place where students can live and learn. You can still have a paragraph that talks about the fun, community building stuff, but add that as an aside, with most of the entry being a focus on the learning activities – with more detail on these and to think about whether those learning opportunities as students go from Freshman to Senior year. To do justice to this topic, I think you should definitely look at Mayfield: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/ohare/living-learning-communities/mayfields/)