My doctor tells me that I should be fully recovered by fall, if all goes well. I don't have any broken bones, no physical illness, and there is no medication to help. Instead, I'm recovering from spending a week living in the Stoke Hall dorm with students from all colleges of the university. I moved into Stoke during a week in April, sleeping (alone), eating and visiting with students for a week, and I got the education of my life.
As the Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, I speak with a lot of students over the course of each year, but most of the time it has been on my turf. I'm often the "Father Figure," the disciplinarian, the cheerleader, the good cop and/or the bad cop, and the final (well, almost final) arbitrator of disputes. Students who come to see me must often feel like they are going to the "Principal's office," thus I don't often have much in the way of laid back, relaxed, "just chillin'" conversations with the folks who are the reason we are here.
So how did it come to be that I found myself living with the students? My son, Jon, a sophomore student in a college out west, gets credit for that. In a conversation about how things were going in his dorm, I made a comment about how it was when I was in the dorm, some years ago. Jon, almost politely, suggested that I didn't have a clue. As I thought about his insightful comment, I realized that perhaps it was different for students now, given that the earth was still cooling and the mountains still rising from the sea when I was in the dorms, and they weren't even co-ed then. One thing led to another and soon I made a request to Dr. Mark Rubenstein, the VP for Student and Academic Services, to assist me in finding a place in one of the first year dorms. In his wisdom, Dr. Rubenstein waited until a room became empty (clearly out of courtesy to any poor student that would have had to share a room with me) and I was invited to move in. Now, I would be on their turf.
Stoke Hall is the largest of the UNH dorms with 600 to 700 students in residence during the academic year, and it is not new by any stretch of the imagination. As I packed my sleeping bag and a weeks worth of clothes, I began to wonder what in the world I had been thinking. However, that trepidation didn't last long; I was met at the door of Stoke, given an access card, and shown my room. As I unpacked, I was welcomed by a delegation of students and the hall resident assistant (RA). After exchanging pleasantries for a bit, I was informed in no uncertain terms by the RA that there was not to be any loud noise from my room, no wild parties, no drinking, and if I didn't behave myself, I would be expelled. Then there was dead silence waiting for my response. I assured them that I wouldn't do anything that they wouldn't do, and that began a week of laughing and learning.
So what does one learn in a week in the dorm? I learned that the dorms are cleaner than I would have guessed (with individual rooms as exceptions), that the students are far more courteous than when I was a resident, that it is still always noisy, that the folks in Stoke Hall love Stillings dining hall, that nothing starts in the evening before 10:00pm, that students are smart and have way too much energy, and that if you really want to know how to improve things, you only need to ask the students directly. For the cost of ten large pizzas, I learned over dinner one evening that the prerequisites to many courses in our college were established historically and are no longer relevant, that the order of some of our classes don't facilitate the best learning experience for our students, that some courses have names that don't make sense, that we are not offering some courses that students want to take (a specific example was a forensics course), that some of our faculty advisors could be rude and short with students, and that the students felt a divide between their academic life and their residential life at UNH. The cost of those ten pizzas may have been the best money I have ever spent. Granted, I had only been the dean for less than a year when I moved into Stoke, but the kind of information provided by the students was certainly information that I had not previously found and had not been provided from elsewhere.
There were other benefits as well, I learned a line dance. Each floor has a social gathering each week and I was invited to a dance. I haven't laughed so hard in years; these young scholars were clowns, gymnasts, completely goofy, and wonderful hosts. I also attended a meeting between the students and representatives of the dining halls. While there is an interest in healthy food, chicken fingers still rule the menu. But the meeting prompted a subsequent session between folks in my college and the dining hall folks to discuss converting perhaps a hundred acres from producing animal food at the UNH farms to producing fresh vegetables for "student" food. Another night I witnessed "room draw," the lottery process of getting dorm rooms for next year and learned that students in Stoke Hall can "squat" their rooms if they want to stay where they currently live. I met with the residence hall directors from all over campus at their Thursday lunch meeting, and I vow never to reveal the secret meeting place. While I tried to stay at my day job until 5:00pm each day, each evening at Stoke was something new with the students. I did everything but sleep.
And now we have the chance to implement changes that will reflect what I learned. I guess the work has really just started. A special thanks goes to Brad Williams who is the Stoke Hall Director. Brad kept me informed of all the events and opportunities in which I could be involved, and encouraged the students to be nice to me. And a very big "THANKS" to all the students at Stoke who were so kind to include me in their activities, for their frank and honest opinions, and for the Stoke Hall T-shirt that will prove that I survived. In fact, I had such a good time that I'm going to do it again!
Bill Trumble
Dean, College of Life Sciences and Agriculture
Office of the Dean, Taylor Hall - UNH
Email: bill.trumble@unh.edu |
