http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-11-09-nsse-faculty_N.htm

Faculty play role outside class as mentors, models
Florida A&M University broadcast students A'sia Horne-Smith and Brook Paul
discuss the logistics of the student broadcast of presidential election results
on Election Day with professor Kenneth Jones in Tallahassee. 	
	
 STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
The database: Search scores of participating U.S. schools
Blog: USA TODAY's Mary Beth Marklein gives details in reporter's notebook
On the web: Resources for college search
Colleges' consumer info goes public
Archives: NSSE's alternative way to think of school quality | Helicopter
parents' role | Engagement ideas
	

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
Sometimes, professors are more than just classroom instructors. Sometimes
they're mentors, or cheerleaders. Other times, they're citizens doing their
civic duty.

Which is how it came to be that faculty, administrators and students at Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical University together marched to the polls on Oct. 20,
the first day of early voting in Florida. More than 1,000 strong, they cast
their ballots for the next president of the United States.

"It's something for a faculty to be lenient on their attendance policies, but
for a faculty member to come and march means a great deal to our students," says
Vincent Evans, 20, a political-science major, who helped coordinate the march.
It sends the message that "this university community stands as one body, we
speak with one voice," he says.


Located in Tallahassee, the historically black public university of more than
13,000 students has a long, rich tradition of civic engagement. But this
election season has offered multiple teachable moments outside the classroom. It
culminated in an election night watch party on the campus quad.


Other schools that show high levels of student-faculty interaction in this
year's National Survey of Student Engagement, particularly outside the
classroom:

--Even before classes begin, faculty members at the University of Denver are in
touch by e-mail with students enrolled in their first-year seminar. Thanks to an
alumni gift, those faculty each get $1,000 to put toward meals, guest lectures
and other activities during orientation week, when they meet for the first time.
The highlight is a field trip off campus. The purpose of the program is to
provide a sort of anchor as students get their bearings. Then, as they head off
to their other courses, "they have one class where they already really know
their professor and classmates," says psychology professor Janette Benson, who
chairs the first-year seminar committee. This fall, students in her seminar,
"Children in America Today: Smarter, Busier, Better?" went to the Denver
Children's Museum. She'll remain their adviser throughout the first year.

--Grand View University in Des Moines has for three years offered faculty funds
of up to $200 to host activities with students outside class. Professors have
taken literature students to a coffee shop for a poetry slam, invited budding
educators to attend a state teaching convention and sprung for pizza as part of
a study session for final exams. With a campus of about 1,900 students, "we
pride ourselves on being a high-touch campus," says Pam Milloy, who coordinates
the grant program.

--Faculty and student interaction outside class is not just encouraged at
Sewanee: The University of the South\u2014 the Tennessee town of Sewanee is so
small and the location so remote that it's practically unavoidable. "Students
have the chance to get to know not only their professors, but the professors'
families and pets. They meet jogging on campus, having dinner at one of the few
local restaurants, or at a concert or program," says Sewanee spokeswoman Laurie
Saxton. Because there is one central dining hall on campus, students and faculty
also have opportunities to mingle over lunch. And because of a unique charter
that grants the school some municipal responsibilities, the volunteer fire
department is run and staffed with a mix of students. That said, the campus also
takes intentional steps to promote student-faculty interaction, Saxton says. One
tradition: Faculty typically invite students they advise, at most 10 students,
to their homes for dinner at the start of the school year.

--Student-faculty interaction is similarly woven into the fabric of Saint Mary's
University of Minnesota, says Bob Conover, spokesman for the small Catholic
college in Winona. Faculty members lead and perform in student jazz groups that
are active off-campus, participate with students in intramural sports and join
students in singing for the chapel choir at Mass. Students, faculty and staff
join together to do service work in Winona, clean up highways and the creek that
runs through campus, and to stage benefit activities for natural disasters or
needy community members. The provost and faculty host a popular pre-finals
late-night breakfast.

Other schools sowing high levels of student-faculty engagement outside the
classroom are the University of Tulsa and The University of the Pacific.