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Faculty members to live alongside students in Purdue’s residence halls

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) – A new program at Purdue University will place faculty members in the residence halls to live alongside students. It’s an effort to build mentorships and relationships between faculty and students.

It was all based on one of the school’s most historic figures – Amelia Earhart.

A two-bedroom apartment in Vawter Hall isn’t too shabby. It was designed with comfort in mind.

“We wanted to make sure that the apartment was the same kind of apartment that any faculty would have off campus,” said Residential Life Director Carl Krieger.

A faculty member could soon be calling the apartment home. It’s all part of the newly announced Amelia Earhart Faculty-in-Residence Program.

“She was a faculty member here, and when she arrived, she was asked by the women of Windsor if she would like to engage with them,” Krieger said. “What they wanted was a mentor and scholar who could show them what it meant to be a female in academia. One of the parts of the Purdue-Gallup Index said that mentorship was one of the dominate factors to a positive experience in the classroom and outside of the classroom at the university.”

The apartment includes a parking pass, a meal plan and programmatic funds.

“Whatever we need to do to make sure that they are being presented to the students in the best possible way. That’s what we’re going to do,” said Krieger.

Emily Defries, a senior Biology major, said she thinks the program will be helpful.

“A lot of the grad schools I applied to were based off the professors I met my junior year, and so maybe that would lead you to your direction in the future but also make you feel like you had a parent here to make you feel better,” said Defries.

The program will begin in the fall of this year.

The university will be accepting applications for the apartment until the end of March. Depending on the response, the hope is to have more of these apartments in the future.