Our residential initiatives encourage learning, foster a sense of belonging, and reduce barriers between faculty and students. There are several ways faculty members can become involved in our community, engage with students outside a classroom setting, and learn more about the student experience at UO.
Become a Faculty in the Hall | Start an ARC or Residential Community | Join the ARC Council
Become a Faculty in the Hall
The Faculty in the Hall program incorporates tenure-related faculty and career instructors into a residence hall community and a Residence Life team, comprising the community director, resident assistants, and hall council.
Faculty Fellows
Faculty fellows serve as general faculty advisors and mentors to all students living in the community regardless of majors or fields of study, although they can also provide specialized support to those students whose coursework coincides with their areas of research, teaching, and scholarship.
Fellows maintain a presence in our residence and dining halls, hold office hours, and help put on events for students.
Learn more about our current fellows and their individual areas of focus on the University Housing website.
Interested in becoming a Faculty Fellow? Contact us using this form.
Faculty in Residence
Faculty in Residence delve deeper into student connection by living on campus in the residence halls, bringing their families, pets, and lives into the fabric of campus. They model intellectual curiosity as a way of living, share their passions and interests, and engage students through a range of formal and informal interactions.
Faculty in the halls foster opportunities for students to have candid and broad conversations about what it means to be a learner at a research university, such as academic habits, identity development, study skills, undergraduate research, study abroad/internships, graduate school, and career paths.
Learn more about our four Faculty in Residence and their individual areas of focus on the University Housing website.
This is a two-way street. As students have shared their lives with me, I share my life with them. That means academics on the one hand, but it also means exercising together, watching films together, attending plays they star in. It has led to truly deep exchanges on academic and life topics, and it has motivated me always to strive for the best and to lead by example.
Start an ARC or Residential Community
What Are Residential Communities?
An Academic Residential Community (ARC) is a cohort of students who live together in the same building and take classes together based around an interest or identity. The ARC curriculum includes a year-long, four-credit UGST-labeled ARC seminar and often incorporates another class that aligns with the interest of the community.
A Residential Community (RC) is a cohort of students who live together based on a shared interest or identity, but who do not take any courses together. An RC is a great opportunity for students looking to build community in the residence halls but are not interested in exploring a discipline academically.
Both ARCs and RCs include co-curricular programming led by peer mentors, faculty, and staff, and have resident assistants specifically selected and assigned to the communities.
For a full list of our current communities, visit the University Housing website.
Benefits for Students
ARCs and RCs incorporate high-impact practices including:
- Year-long, first-year seminars
- Common intellectual experiences
- Cohort-based learning communities
- Undergraduate research
- Experiential/project-based pedagogy
As a result, students enrolled residential communities have higher retention and graduation rates, and have higher cumulative GPAs, compared to non-participants.
Some ARCs are interdisciplinary, providing a cornerstone for a student's subsequent education. Others introduce students to possible fields of Major and Minor specialization.
The cohort of identity-based ARCs assume an integral role in supporting institutional objectives for the recruitment, retention, and success of traditionally underserved students and students of color.
ARCs foster a meaningful set of mentoring relationships early in students’ undergraduate careers that endure beyond a single course or term. They ensure students enjoy an opportunity to know and to be known by faculty.
ARC Faculty Directors design and instruct ARC seminars throughout the year that involve students in experiential-centered, inquiry-based, research-oriented, and community engaged projects, which culminate with presentations at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Benefits for Faculty and Departments
- Recruit and select students expressing interest in particular majors, minors, and areas of study through their ARC applications
- Engage students early and meaningfully to bring them into a major, minor, or professional school, including a cohort-model approach. ARC students continue their strong cohort relationships through the minor, major, or professional school as they progress through their undergraduate career.
- Introduce students to undergraduate research opportunities and student leadership positions within minors and majors
- Develop innovative pedagogies through the year-long ARC seminar that typically incorporate research/inquiry-oriented, community-based projects.
- Create curricular pathways and link ARC seminar to core-education and minor/major curriculum.
Interested in starting a new ARC? ARCs can take 18-24 months to develop. Start the process by emailing Kevin Hatfield to discuss.
Join the ARC Council
The Academic Residential Community (ARC) Council serves as an advisory board to the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education and Student Success (UESS) and the Associate Vice President of Student Services and Enrollment Management (SSEM)/Director of University Housing.
The Council charge focuses on the integration and alignment of academic residential communities and programs, as well as the Residential Curricular Model of Residence Life, with the institution’s Student Success priorities and the academic-based live-on requirement for first-year students.
The ARC Council is co-chaired by Grant Schoonover, Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Student Success, and Michael Griffel, Vice President, Student Services and Enrollment Management and Director of University Housing.
It is convened twice quarterly by Kevin Hatfield, Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Research and Distinguished Scholarships and Director of Academic Residential and Research Initiatives.