A key component of the overall vision of CLASS is the improvement of the year-to-year experience of freshmen to seniors. In particular, Vice President for Student Life Eddie Ade Knowles and Assistant Vice President for the Student Experience Lisa Trahan are looking to build upon the success of the Office of the First-Year Experience to create a complementary system for second-year students. The Sophomore-Year Experience would provide ongoing support to individuals as they continue to transition to increasingly independent roles in life. This would come in the form of programming and advisement, much like FYE offers, but catering to a more mature and experienced audience.
In order to make that sort of nurturing environment successful, sophomores will be required to live in on-campus housing. This mandate is currently set to take effect in the Fall 2010 semester, according to Knowles, and will thus affect next year’s incoming students—those enrolling in the Class of 2013.
Exempt from this requirement will be students living in certain greek housing. Fraternities and sororities that use the Institute bursar to handle room and board income will be permitted to house sophomores under the new policy.
Even considering the opportunities provided by greek housing, current facilities are insufficient to accommodate the extra demand for on-campus housing that the sophomore requirement would create. The shortage is underscored by recent increases in students interested in Institute residence halls.
According to Trahan, 2,963 students are currently living in university housing; of those, 597 freshmen and 21 upperclassmen are living in triple-occupancy rooms. There are currently 81 unfilled beds on campus.
Corresponding comprehensive programs for the junior and senior classes are not currently part of the overarching vision, but the concept of class deans is being revived to facilitate smooth experiences throughout a student’s time at Rensselaer. Class deans under the current plan would join a class at the sophomore year and would stay with it until graduation. They would be responsible for programming and would also stay abreast of students’ academic progress. Class deans would report directly to the assistant vice president for the Student Experience.
Similar class dean systems have been attempted at RPI in recent history. Most recently, 2004 saw the appointment of Dean of Students Mark Smith as the class dean for the Class of 2007, but that program eventually failed without successive deans being named. The concept has been a common theme in Institute program planning, however, appearing multiple times in President Shirley Ann Jackson’s annual town meetings and the performance plans for the Division of Student Life.
