Making a personal connection with a faculty member outside of the classroom will have a significant impact on student success and academic satisfaction. One way to make this connection is a specialty residence hall floor. This type of living option provides students with similar academic interests a place where they can live, study, and socialize together. Specialty floors are communities created through the collaborative efforts of students, academic departments, advanced students in the department, and the Office of Housing and Residence Life. The most successful academic specialty floors are those that have significant support from faculty members.
Students learn as much from interacting with each other as from working with the faculty.
Dr. Dee Klein, Professor of English and faculty liaison to the English floor, concurs with Grove. There is a wonderful opportunity to develop learning circles and study groups. In support of the notion that students may do better academically if they are living and studying in a community of common interest is Dr. Robert Prezant, the faculty liaison on the Gordon Hall Biology Floor. My perception is that students with colleagues with similar goals and thus mutual support achieve at a faster level. The students agree with the sentiments of the faculty liaisons.