Welcome to your new “House”
Residence Life house system to encourage spiritual growth
By Melissa McCutchan, CIU Student Writer
“What are you leading your students
toward
?” For Director of
Residence Life David Blanchard, this is a favorite question to
ask his Residence Life staff. It’s important to him that his staff of
26 upperclassmen has a driving vision to guide their ministry on
CIU’s residence halls.
It’s this same desire for a forward-moving vision that led
Blanchard, a 2009 CIU alumnus, to begin the Residence Life
Strategic Initiative (RLSI), a new structure for CIU’s residence
halls that will begin with the 2016-2017 academic year.
In recent years, new CIU students lived together in one
building, alongside a team of upperclassmen known as
the Freshman Leadership Team (FLT). Each hall had two
upperclassmen known as Freshman Community Coordinators
(FCC) and one Resident Assistant (RA). For most freshmen, the
hall was a vital part of a first-year university experience. Hall
mates laughed together, prayed together, and went on late-
night ice cream runs together. However, hall mates were often
split up when they moved to upperclassmen halls the following
year, and often the community on upperclassman halls wasn’t
as deep or intentional as it was on freshman halls.
“The way this started was looking at what needs to be adjusted
from what we do now,” Blanchard said. “Part of that was
looking at the current freshman halls and figuring out, can we
maximize that? Can we keep all the best parts of the freshman
experience, because that’s been a really positive thing, but
CAMPUS LIFE
also address the ‘sophomore slump’ and the rest of what’s
happening on campus?”
Under the new system, freshmen will live with upperclassmen
in a “house,” associated with CIU’s six existing residence
halls. Commuter students and students living in Pine View
Apartments will also be assigned to a house. Each house will
be named for a virtue, have its own crest, Bible verse, and
traditions. Students will have the option of being associated
with the same House all four years at CIU.
“My hope is that by freshmen living alongside upperclassmen,
there will be a trickle-down effect where some of the
upperclassmen can set the tone for the freshmen, what it looks
like to be at CIU,” Blanchard said. “In order to make all that
work, we wanted to build in this cultural component that would
create some tradition for each house.”
While traditions take time to build, Blanchard already has a
few ideas; for example, fun competitions between houses and
social events within the houses. The goal in all of this is spiritual
development. He says that when students build positive
relationships with one another through fun times, they’ll be
more likely to open up to one another about their spiritual lives.
“I really believe that education is more than just head knowledge
or job skills,” Blanchard said. “That’s something really unique at
CIU. There is this intentionality in developing the entire person.”
David Blanchard meets with RAs.
24
CAMPUS LIFE
CIU Today
Summer 2016