What Is a Resident Fellow?

Residential Education strongly believes that living and learning should be integrated, not separate. In the residences we promote an environment that blends formal and informal learning to facilitate intellectual curiosity and personal growth. A key component of this effort is the Resident Fellow program. Resident Fellows, or RFs, are Stanford faculty and, occasionally, senior administrative staff who live apartments or cottages in or adjacent to student residences and act as leaders for their communities. They  work with the local staff to build an environment that synthesizes and contextualizes students’ educational experience and supports students’ personal development.

Primary Roles of a Resident Fellow

Intellectual Leaders

Resident Fellows bring their interests and pedagogy to the house to shape the intellectual life in residences. RFs set vision for student learning and engagement and develop methods and programs to realize it. 

House Staff Leadership  

Resident Fellows develop productive, effective working relationships with each staff member and engage them in their own learning processes through their positions. The Resident Fellow is expected to create a sense of teamwork  among the staff and counsel them through problem solving.

Building Community

Being a Resident Fellow is an active, not passive, endeavor and one of ongoing collaboration with student staff and university professional staff.  Through this collaboration, Resident Fellows help students develop a sense of belonging to their house and responsibility for the welfare of their housemates as they learn about the social complexity and diversity that exists in each house. 

Interpersonal and Emotional Health

Resident Fellows work with house staff to examine and respond to the social structures that develop in a house. In addition, each house staff member, including the Resident Fellow, works to know individual students and to respond to emerging emotional health concerns.

Training and Meetings

Participation in the Resident Fellow community is important, and Resident Fellows are expected to participate in Resident Fellow orientations, regular Resident Fellow meetings, on-going meetings/dialogues, and required trainings. In addition to engaging with the Resident Fellow community, RFs are in communication with and collaborate regularly with the professional staff in place to support their house such as the Residence Dean, Program Associate, Academic Advising Director, and CAPS liaison.