Living and learning together

But most couples don’t invite a few dozen college students to accompany them.

As resident graduate students (RGSs) in Wilson College, Plumer and Hostetter do just that, having formed clubs focusing on all four activities. Activities with students are a priority for the couple.

“We actually did three events in one night once and it almost killed us,” Plumer said.

They both said their hard work has been quite rewarding. As Plumer explained, the sense of community their activities aim to create makes her job “part of the best experience of my life here.”

While the visibility of RGS-sponsored events varies across the residential colleges — several undergraduates said they were unaware that the RGS program even existed — those who knew about the program strongly praised it.

Breaking into the residential colleges

Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel said that the RGS program, which is now in its third year, was proposed to President Tilghman in the 2002 Report of the Four-Year College Program Planning Committee.

“We do not view graduate student participation merely as a way to enhance the experience of undergraduates,” the committee said in its report. “We also believe that active involvement on the part of a relatively small number of graduate students resident in the colleges will lead to a healthier perception of graduate students among undergraduates, and therefore more positive interchanges between the two groups.”

But it took five years to turn the idea into a reality.

“What needed to happen before the idea could be implemented was, simply, that Whitman needed to be built, that Mathey needed to be renovated and that we needed to renovate dormitory spaces in all six colleges that would be suitable for graduate students in residence,” Malkiel said in an e-mail. “We were first able to achieve the conditions necessary to have graduate students living in each of the colleges in the fall of 2007, when we launched the new four-year college system.”

When the renovations were completed, not all undergraduates were happy.

“My sophomore year, the kitchen in 1937 ... became unavailable to undergrads because an RGS had moved in and was given the kitchen,” Sam Gulland ’10 said in an e-mail. “I never met him but was pissed at him for annexing the kitchen.”

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Joshua Vandiver GS, an RGS in Whitman College who joined the program in its inaugural year, said that undergraduates were initially hesitant to accept his presence in the residential college.

“It still felt like that when we first started the program, students here hadn’t seemed used to seeing grad students other than as preceptors,” he explained. “We seemed alien to them.”

In the last three years, though, “there’s been a lot of ground made” in bringing undergraduate and graduate cultures together, he said.

One reason for the improved relationship may simply be increased interaction between graduate students and their undergraduate neighbors.

Daniel Mark GS, another RGS in Whitman, said in an e-mail that while RGSs are expected to spend 10 hours per week contributing to college life, “considering our pervasive informal interactions with the students, it’s fair to say that most of us are involved much more than that.”

In Wilson College, RGSs “meet as a group every other week, and individually as needed to offer programming support,” Wilson Director of Student Life Michael Olin said. He added that though Wilson gives RGSs enough freedom to undertake their own projects, they also communicate with the graduate students to ensure that “events are a good fit for the college.”

Building community

Patrick Caddeau, Forbes College director of studies, highlighted the intellectual connections that have developed between RGSs and undergraduates.

“They share their deep engagement in a particular field of study with students just beginning college-level work and enrich the intellectual atmosphere of the academic and social programs in which they participate as residents of our colleges,” he said in an e-mail.

But Plumer emphasized that RGS duties “are meant to be non-academic,” contrasting the graduate-undergraduate relationship developed in the program to the academic relationship established in precepts.

“It’s somewhere in the unique position of being between a teacher and a friend,” she said.

Ned Moffat ’13 said that he now enjoys spending time with his RGS after some initial skepticism. “When I first met him, I thought he was a creep because he’s some old grad student,” Moffat said in an e-mail, but his impression has since changed.

RGSs have generally been pleasantly surprised at their interactions with undergraduates.

Adedoyin Teriba, a Rockefeller RGS, said he “wasn’t prepared for how sharp and how brilliant [undergraduates] are.”

“The conversations I’ve had with them have many times left me in awe … and just coming to the conclusion that I definitely wasn’t as brilliant as these people when I was their age. That’s what leaps out the most, their intellectual maturity,” he explained.

Jaison Zachariah ’13 said he felt similarly about his RGSs.

“The RGSs are brilliant people,” he said in an e-mail. “I got a lot of help on midterms and finals from one who was in the computer science department. He was ready and willing to help out regardless of his schedule.”

Beyond homework help, Zachariah said that he has also attended a basketball game at Madison Square Garden with his RGS, who used connections to arrange for a meeting with the players after the game.

Perks of the program

While RGSs said that the social benefits of the program enticed them to join, there are also significant financial benefits to signing on.

RGSs pay only $265 per month for a double or $318 per month for a single room and are given a 125-block meal plan each semester.

In contrast, graduate student apartments at Alexander, Butler, Edwards, Lawrence and Millstone range in cost from $684 for the cheapest studio to $1,149 per month for the most expensive one-bedroom apartment.

A 95-block meal plan costs graduate students $2,961 for the year, while a 190-block meal plan costs $4,937.

RGSs also considered their housing much nicer than other options.

Vandiver said graduate student housing is “like World War II-era housing.”

“Those are fine if you have a family and so forth, but as an RGS you really feel a part of the campus community,” he said.

As for drawbacks to the program, Teriba could not find any.

“It is fantastic,” he said. “I absolutely love it. It has been a wonderful experience so far. It has just been tremendous for me. Overall there is absolutely nothing to complain about.”

This is the last in a five-part series on the lives of graduate students.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified Adedoyin Teriba as a Wilson College RGS. He is, in fact, an RGS at Rockefeller College.