College Students and Faculty in the Residential College Environment: An investigation of student development in the designed living-learning environment

There is a widening trend in developing smaller, more personal living-learning environments within large research universities. Additionally, there is significant evidence supporting the developmental contributions for undergraduate college students living on-campus and interacting with their faculty outside of the traditional classroom. This study examines the development of college students as an outcome of out-of-class interaction with their faculty within the designed residential college environment. I analyzed the experiential reflections of fourteen undergraduate students through their own voices. This analysis allowed me to create a typology for college student-faculty interaction with four variables influencing two qualitatively defined levels of interaction -- rudimentary and heightened. Students shared a wide variety of experiences with their faculty outside the formal classroom. Students all generally wanted meaningful interactions with their faculty members, and the specific outcomes shared in their interviews were all directly attributed to their interactions with their faculty outside of the traditional classroom.