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About MARIAL MARIAL in the News Emory
housing includes live-in profs
Student rooms have crown molding, dishwashers, washers and dryers, and full kitchens. Buildings have built-in music practice rooms, gyms, computer labs and attached parking facilities. In many cases, rooms overlook soon-to-be-completed recreation facilities that include an Olympic-sized, heated outdoor pool, basketball, tennis and volleyball courts, and a cafe. And there's one other thing that differentiates the new Clairmont Campus from other student housing: live-in professors. "The whole idea is to really personalize education, to intentionally create more connections between students and faculty," said Todd Schill, assistant vice president for university housing at Emory. Undergraduates began moving into the new, $64 million mega-complex Sunday, four days before the start of the new school year. The campus, set on 42 acres along Clairmont Road, replaces a set of half-century-old garden apartments that school officials had long wanted to replace. Instead of just tearing down the old apartments and putting up new ones, the school created a "living and learning" residential development, the type of all-inclusive academic village that is becoming more popular nationally. University of Georgia President Michael Adams, for one, has promoted the idea of having more in-house amenities and services in dorms. When it's full, the complex will house 1,100 junior and senior undergraduates, 550 graduates and up to 17 professors and their families. Andrew Jackson Murphy, 21, a premed major from Smyrna, lived in a housing tower Emory is refurbishing on the Clairmont Campus for two years before moving into one of the new buildings two weeks ago. "It's more like apartment-style living, it's more like you're living in the real world," Murphy said. The centerpiece of the campus is an activities and academic center that opens in January. It will include the pool, courts, a playing field, academic classrooms, a computer research lab and the cafe. Plans are being made for the future to add a pizza restaurant, coffee kiosk and convenience store. Apartments run $649 per month, per person for double occupancy, which is similar to what students pay for other Emory housing. One of the key ideas behind the setup is to offer students more programs, seminars, and casual discussions with the faculty living on campus. The pioneering professor of the project is anthropologist Bradd Shore, who moved with his wife Linda and their sheltie Tillie from their home in Marietta to a fancy new apartment with a bookcase-and-fireplace den and a Jacuzzi tub on the Clairmont Campus. Shore is director of Emory's Center for Myth and Ritual American Life, and will run a center for international living on the Clairmont Campus. The Shores were ready for a move after living 15 years in Marietta. Shore is currently studying the rituals of middle-class families, but he never got used to living in suburbia. He didn't like the commute, and many of his social contacts were with people living in the Emory area. Shore sees the faculty-in-residence program as evolving, with no set number of classes or seminars. "I kind of like the idea that it's uncharted territory," he said. "It frees you up to think, 'Let's do things in a new way.' " And the Shores aren't particularly worried about the possibility that they'll have students knocking on their door at all hours of the night, wanting help with classes or advice. "I want this to be the kind of place where students feel
welcome," Linda Shore said. < More MARIAL in the News |