Who oversees Residential Life?
The Director of Residential Life, Nicky Hamilton, works under the Office of the Dean of Students, especially with Assistant Dean Mary Beth Walker.
What is life like in the residence halls?
Residential life is an essential feature of the undergraduate experience at Sewanee. With over 25 different residential units, students have a wide variety of choices. With few exceptions, undergraduates reside in college residence halls and eat in the college dining facilities. All new students live with roommates in traditional residence halls with either hall or suite bath arrangements. Students may choose to live in either co-ed or single sex residence halls. Most residence halls are composed of residents of all class years and affiliations. Life within the residence hall provides activity and interaction. When new students arrive on campus they are greeted by their Assistant Proctor who lives in their residence hall and guides them through orientation and the many milestones of their first year.
Who is responsible for individual residence halls?
The residence halls are under the supervision of the Director of Residential Life. Each dormitory has a carefully selected staff consisting of one to two Proctors, depending on the size of the dorm, one to eight Assistant Proctors, and in most dorms, a Head Resident. Proctors, as the student heads of the dormitory staff, are responsible for building community, rule enforcement, dormitory programming, and the reporting of needed dormitory repair. Assistant Proctors live, when possible, on the same floor as their freshman advisee groups and act as liaisons between the freshmen and their faculty advisors. They also assist the Proctors in dormitory activities, programming, and rule enforcement. Head Residents are mature full-time staff members, usually with experience and interest in working with college students. The staff is generally responsible for creating a positive atmosphere and ensuring that residential life runs as smoothly as possible. If there is maintenance or facilities related problem in a residence hall, these concerns should be reported to the Proctor or Head Resident.
Members of the staff receive extensive training in leadership, management, and counseling skills. They hold regular weekly meetings in order to be informed of any problems which might have arisen in the dormitory and to plan dormitory activities, and they participate in ongoing training and evaluation sessions with the Deans of Students, the Director of Residential Life, and the University Counselors.
What is provided in student rooms?
Each student is furnished with a bed, desk and chair, chest, bookcase, and closet. The student should furnish a pillow and necessary linens. A desk lamp is almost a necessity. All rooms have ethernet connections for computer network access. All dormitories have common rooms with color television, washers and dryers, ironing boards, and kitchen facilities.
What principles govern residential life?
With 95% of students living in residential halls, dormitory life has a profound influence on campus. Life and relationships in our residential college community are rooted in the good citizenship cultivated within the dormitories. The college believes that the dormitory is primarily a place for students to study, relax, and sleep. Dormitory regulations and community rules are in place to promote a safe and pleasant atmosphere in the dormitories. All students sign a housing contract at the beginning of each academic year. The regulations noted in the contract are designed to protect the rights of the individual and to make the living conditions within the dormitories optimal for study and positive interaction.
Policies on smoking, upkeep of rooms, exterior and interior door locks, proper use of furniture and other University property, fire code procedures, use of alcohol, school break guidelines, restrictions on pets, and other health and sanitation guidelines are in place. All residence halls are smoke-free.
Quiet hours are enforced from 7:30 p.m. through the night on Sundays through Thursdays, for the benefit of those who are studying or sleeping. Residence halls are open to visitors of the opposite sex from 9:00 a.m. until midnight Sundays through Thursdays, and until 1:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. However, a student’s right of free access to his or her room at all times should not be abrogated by visitation. A roommate should not be deprived of the right to privacy, study time, or sleep because of a guest. Students of the opposite sex are not assigned and may not arrange to live in a dormitory room together. Thus the college does not allow cohabitation and cannot ignore any infraction of this policy which comes to its attention.
A recent development in residential life at Sewanee is the addition of substance-free floors in several buildings. In these halls students acknowledge their interest in leading a healthy lifestyle and agree to abstain from the use of tobacco or alcohol. The atmosphere has been very positive and students have enjoyed living without the second hand effects of smoke and alcohol. Two or more residence halls have substance free housing, and all buildings are designated as smoke free.
