The inaugural cohort will collaborate with house leadership teams to expand program offerings geared toward intellectual engagement and deepening faculty-student connections.
Six faculty members have joined Dartmouth's residential house communities as inaugural faculty fellows.
The fellows will collaborate with house leadership teams to expand program offerings geared toward intellectual engagement and deepening faculty-student connections.
"One of the distinguishing elements of Dartmouth's house communities, when compared to peer institutions, is the broader and more inclusive involvement of faculty and staff affiliates," says Professor of Anthropology Sienna Craig, who serves as house professor at South House and as co-director, with Associate Professor of Sociology Janice McCabe, of house communities development.
"Faculty participation is an element of this system that students appreciate and wish to see expand," Craig says. "This new program bridges the Division of Student Affairs with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and helps us increase student access to members of the faculty in residential spaces."
All undergraduates are assigned to one of six houses when they arrive as first-year students, and they maintain their affiliation to their house throughout their time at Dartmouth. Each house is overseen by a house professor who lives in a single-family home near the student residences.
At this time four of Dartmouth's six house communities have appointed faculty fellows: Professor of Computer Science Amit Chakrabarti (East Wheelock House), Professor of Anthropology Nathaniel Dominy (North Park House), Professor of English and Creative Writing Jodi Kim (North Park House), Senior Lecturer of French Kelly McConnell '00, Guarini '03, (Allen House), Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies Edward Miller (South House), and Assistant Professor of Art History Adedoyin Teriba (South House).
Current house professors developed the Faculty Fellows program with support from the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of the Dean of Faculty. When fully launched, the program will support one or two faculty fellows each year affiliated with each house. Tenure-line professors or lecturers with multi-year contracts are eligible to serve as fellows, who receive a modest research stipend in exchange for dedicated service within each house community.
"We are excited to welcome the inaugural cohort this year, and will be putting out a broad call for new fellows for the 2024-25 academic year at the end of spring term," Craig says.
Here, each new fellow shares a few words about their motivation for joining Dartmouth's house communities.
Amit Chakrabarti, Professor of Computer Science
Faculty Fellow, East Wheelock House
I enjoy interacting with young people—the builders of our future world—in settings besides professor and student. Playing games can bring together people of all ages from diverse backgrounds. I especially love word games and am a competitive Scrabble player, having competed in world championships and U.S. national championships a few times. I hope to create a social space where Dartmouth's word game lovers can socialize over a shared passion while also being competitive and striving to improve their skills. As an immigrant who was once a student in the U.S. with no family in this country, I can relate to the experiences of many of our own immigrant students.
Nathaniel Dominy, Professor of Anthropology
Faculty Fellow, North Park House
I'd like to elevate and enliven North Park's symbolic ties to polar bears and Arctic systems. I can imagine closer connections with the Institute of Arctic Studies and the Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, as well as talks or performances by visiting scholars or artists. A student-curated exhibit at the Hood Museum of Art would be a lot of fun, too.
Jodi Kim, Professor of English and Creative Writing
Faculty Fellow, North Park House
My motivation for being a faculty fellow stems from my belief in the significance of being a part of a community. Indeed, for undergraduate students in particular, having a community or set of communities is critical and can have truly transformative and lasting effects long after college. Having served as "Faculty in Residence" at my previous institution, I possess substantive experience in building "living and learning" communities. This allows me to state concretely that I find such work quite rewarding, and it drives my interest in making parallel contributions to Dartmouth's house system.
I am also motivated to be a faculty fellow because I believe my research and teaching interests in Asian American literature and culture, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race and ethnic studies will be of interest to and align well with strengthening the house communities.
Kelly McConnell '00, Guarini '03, Senior Lecturer of French
Faculty Fellow, Allen House
I have always believed in the power of integrating academic and residential life. As an undergraduate student at Dartmouth, I was a member of the first "living learning community" in the Wheelock cluster. It was an opportunity to explore beyond my own primary areas of interest and meet truly exceptional authors, scholars, and artists.
I believe that university communities are stronger when students form connections with faculty and staff that extend beyond the classroom. I have loved participating in Allen House programming as a faculty member. The house system at Dartmouth is also uniquely positioned to bring together members of our professional community and their families, allowing students to form even broader connections to the communities that surround them.
Edward Miller, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies
Faculty Fellow, South House
My reasons for joining South House as a faculty fellow are connected to my interest in study abroad. I believe that study abroad can be a hugely valuable form of learning. I also feel that Dartmouth is unique in its approach and its commitment to study abroad. Yet I think that Dartmouth faculty and students can do more to connect our study abroad experiences to the learning that we do on campus. I am very excited to collaborate with Professor Craig and her team to experiment with new pre- and post-study abroad learning opportunities. I'm so looking forward to being part of the SoHo community!
Adedoyin Teriba, Assistant Professor of Art History
Faculty Fellow, South House
Residential education, that is, one where faculty, students, and staff constantly interact with one another, is the epitome of what a university is. My contribution to realizing such a vision is currently serving as the faculty advisor to three student organizations at Dartmouth. When I taught at Vassar College, I was a house fellow of Main House. I hope to bring that experience to bear at South House, creating for instance, a regular meeting between staff, students, and faculty where we explore diverse cultures around the world through food and language.