New Program Encourages Professors To Live With Their Students

College dorm life can be a rich and challenging experience: plastic cups of lukewarm beer, wafts of cheap weed, and doodles of genitalia on your dorm door's white board. But Clemson University has introduced a new element into the mix: your professor.

This is the inaugural year of Clemson's faculty-in-residence program. In the last few decades, colleges across the country have introduced similar schemes, breaking down the barriers between teacher and student. The idea is for professors to serve as mentors, offering their young neighbors advice on everything from classes, majors, and career paths to friendship feuds and family problems. These initiatives also speak to a more fundamental shift in understanding what higher education should be: an immersive living-learning experience.