A clinical professor of occupational therapy in Sargent College, Jacobs is one of 13 faculty members who make up BU\u2019s Faculty-in-Residence (FIR) program. Designed to deepen the impact of teaching and research, FIR allows students and faculty to interact on an informal, day-to-day basis outside the classroom. \u201cStudents, particularly freshmen, are often intimidated by the concept of \u2018The Professor,\u2019\u201d Jacobs says. \u201cThe Faculty-in-Residence program helps to demystify us.\u201d Besides that, the program creates a warm, inviting environment for students. Jacobs (below, right) <\/em>keeps her door open whenever she\u2019s home and encourages students to drop by for homemade cookies and conversation. \u201cI think students appreciate having an adult around,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n To take part in the program, which provides a rent-free living space and partial meal plan, professors are required to offer evening \u201copen hours\u201d and attend RA meetings. Jacobs holds a weekly \u201cTest Kitchen,\u201d teaching the culinarily-challenged how to prepare dishes other than ramen noodles.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s important that students have some life skills before they graduate,\u201d she says. \u201cI want them to know how to cook, and more importantly, cook healthily.\u201d They make potato latkes for Passover and fried samosas for Diwali. After dinner, she and the students often play board games. In keeping with her efforts to encourage healthy habits, Jacobs introduced a new activity last semester: sunrise yoga to help relieve stress and boost concentration. She even arranged for a masseuse to give students free massages during finals week.<\/p>\n Diane Meuser, an associate professor of math and statistics in the College of Arts & Sciences who has participated in the program for more than 30 years, takes her students on annual hikes to New Hampshire\u2019s Mount Monadnock and organizes bike rides to Concord and Lincoln. She also hosts homemade ice cream parties in her apartment, with such flavors as avocado, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate truffle.<\/p>\n \u201cI like living on campus and being right in the middle of things,\u201d she says. \u201cIt would be boring to live in the suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacobs\u2019s residents pitch in to help with some of her research projects, most notably one that determines the proper ergonomics for using a laptop computer. Partially conducted in Warren Towers, the study offers suggestions on how students can modify their laptops to function as desktop computer workstations. \u201cBecause laptop computers are so portable, students often use them on their beds and at tables,\u201d she says. \u201cAs a result, some users are developing health problems like wrist, neck, shoulder, head, and back pain.\u201d She is currently expanding the study to include information about iPads and iPhones.<\/p>\n But Jacobs doesn\u2019t see her residents as research subjects. \u201cThe students and I, we\u2019re a family,\u201d she says. And she means that quite literally. \u201cMy son was a freshman during my first year at Warren Towers,\u201d she recalls, \u201cand I introduced him to a young woman on my floor. They fell in love, got married, and now I have a grandchild.\u201d\u00a0 \u25a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Vicky Waltz Photos by Kalman Zabarsky Back in the \u201970s, when Karen Jacobs was\u00a0a student\u00a0at BU, she didn\u2019t live on campus. Then she decided to make up for lost time. When Jacobs moved to Boston from the suburbs seven years ago, she didn\u2019t buy a fancy brownstone on Commonwealth Avenue. Instead, she settled in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4966,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4181,8818],"tags":[4898,8750,8749,8743,8967,3123,8748,8744,8745,8751],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4966"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/parentmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"At](\"\/parentmagazine\/files\/2011\/08\/09-1959-NFCJACOBS-173_sm.jpg\" "\\"At")
<\/p>\n![\"Dorm](\"\/parentmagazine\/files\/2011\/08\/DormHome_quote1.jpg\" "\\"Dorm")
Research on student retention and academic success indicates that faculty-student interaction outside the classroom leads to a higher rate of student achievement, says Jacobs. \u201cPrograms like this put more role models in the residence halls.\u201d \u201cI am constantly amazed at how easy it is to develop relationships with these students and at how long they last across their collegiate experiences and beyond,\u201d says Bryan Stone, associate dean at the School of Theology and Warren Towers resident. \u201cThere\u2019s a \u2018specialness\u2019 to being able to see students outside the classroom, where they live, eat, and mix with one another, and to having some influence\u2014sometimes small, sometimes bigger\u2014in their lives,\u201d adds Ed Downes, an associate professor of mass communication in the College of Communication, who lives at 10 Buick Street.<\/p>\n![\"Making](\"\/parentmagazine\/files\/2011\/08\/09-1820-SARGENTOT-077_sm.jpg\" "\\"Making")
<\/p>\n![\"Dorm](\"\/parentmagazine\/files\/2011\/08\/DormHome_quote2.jpg\" "\\"Dorm")
Other faculty members host Monday Night Football parties, community service excursions, and fishing trips to Gloucester.<\/p>\n