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Faculty Director Chan Thai embraces her role as the ‘cool aunt’ for new Broncos living on campus

Every fall, thousands of students from all over the country arrive at ÌÇÐÄÆƽâ°æ carrying heavy suitcases and boxes, ready to settle into their home away from home. Among the friendly faces welcoming them on move-in day is associate professor of communication Chan Thai, ready to answer questions and ease the first-day jitters of students and families. 

Thai isn’t just a faculty member, but an integral part of the university’s eight Residential Learning Communities (RLCs), where students live alongside faculty and staff. As faculty director of the Cura RLC for the past six years, she has helped students navigate their adjustment to college life.

At Santa Clara, all first and second-year students are required to live on campus and many live in an RLC, which is a themed community within the residence halls. Each theme relates to the university’s Jesuit values around social justice and cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Students in RLCs not only live together, but might also share some core classes, giving them the opportunity to foster community support and connection inside and outside of the classroom. 

In addition to her work as faculty director and academic scholarship in health communication, Thai has recently focused on designing programs and curriculum to support the success of first-year students. Last year, she teamed up with fellow faculty director and Assistant Professor Brita Bookser to develop a quarter-long seminar grounded in wellness that helped first-year students build confidence and balance new responsibilities during their transition to college. After completing the program and receiving positive feedback from the students involved, they presented their curriculum at a national conference to help other universities strengthen their own first-year programs.

This year, Thai continues to create wellness programming and mentorship opportunities within the RLCs. Her passion lies in putting the student first and helping them grow in all parts of their lives. We talked to Thai about life in the RLCs, her approach to student well-being, and advice she offers new Broncos starting their journey at Santa Clara.

What makes the Residential Learning Communities so special?

At Santa Clara, we prioritize teaching our students to care for themselves as whole persons and keep wellness at the core of their college experience. We bring this same framework into the RLCs so that first and second-year students are able to step into their college journey ready to succeed. What makes Santa Clara’s model unique is that we have leadership from different divisions on campus, including Residence Life, Campus Ministry, and faculty, like myself, within every RLC that guides students during their first couple of years on campus. They help students realize that there’s so much support for them in this new experience because of our school’s Jesuit mission. It’s so powerful that they realize this when they start at Santa Clara because they can walk into the rest of their undergraduate experience knowing that kindness, wellness, and support is the framework and the vibe of the campus.

Every RLC has a resident director from Residence Life and a spirituality facilitator from Campus Ministry, who is essentially a graduate student who acts almost like a mentor for students. There are also residential assistants, which we call community facilitators here. Lastly, there is one faculty member who lives in each community who serves as the faculty director. That is my role.

How would you describe your role as a faculty director?

When new students move in, I tell them to think of me as “the cool aunt” in the building. As faculty directors, we’re not there to get students in trouble. There is no disciplinary part of our job. We’re just there to offer support, provide advice, and make sure that students have what they need to succeed. I like to use the family analogy to help students understand just how much support is available to them in the RLCs. If, for some reason, they feel like the faculty director or “the aunt or uncle” of the community is not approachable, then they have this “older cousin” (the spirituality facilitator) who has been through the undergraduate experience before and can help them with anything. 

Since I’m technically the academic arm of the support system in the RLCs, I do find myself offering a lot of advice in that domain. Students often come to me with questions about how to change their majors or drop classes. But they also ask for help with more personal situations too, like how to navigate difficult conversations with their roommates. I’m happy I can be a person who they can bounce ideas off of and provide suggestions for how they might want to navigate certain situations that they may be encountering for the first time.

What support can students expect to receive while living in the RLCs during their first years on campus?

We try to touch on a bit of everything. Every year during the fall quarter, we have sessions where students can drop in and learn how to register for classes. Usually, the faculty directors invite academic advisors from the Drahmann Center to help students with registration for the following quarter. Many faculty directors will also make themselves available for drop-in hours, or students can always email them for support.

We try to develop our programming in the residence halls based on what needs we see the students have each year. We hold different programs in the evenings, when most students are back in the halls, and try to encourage them to attend. In Cura where I live, I’ll be offering a time management workshop in the fall because I think it’s helpful to give students this tool early on so they can potentially use it for the rest of their time at Santa Clara.

Students will likely hear a lot about the Eight Dimensions of Wellbeing. What are they and how are they incorporated into life in the RLCs?

The Eight Dimensions of Wellbeing are basically a roadmap to wellness in all parts of your life. More specifically, the dimensions are: spiritual, emotional, communal, financial, environmental, physical, vocational, and intellectual. Each RLC plans programming to address all of these areas each quarter. For example, people from the Sustainability Center may come to the residential halls and lead a session about environmental wellness. We make an effort to provide exposure to holistic wellbeing to all of our students through the RLCs.

I think it’s a great way to get them to think beyond just studying and getting good grades. College is also about learning about yourself as a whole person and recognizing that there are other aspects of yourself that you should learn how to cultivate if you’re going to be a successful student. For example, if you’re not physically healthy and you’re not getting enough sleep, that’s going to contribute to how well you do in your classes. And if you don’t have socializing as a part of your life on campus, that’s also going to impact the kind of college experience you have.

What advice do you have for new Broncos starting their college journey at Santa Clara?

Being successful doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. Don’t feel like you have to do it all by yourself or prove anything because you’re in college now. Everyone needs help to get to where they’re going and no one does it alone. By coming to Santa Clara, you’ve chosen a campus where people want to help you, so don’t be afraid to ask for help. It’s a very warm place where people want to see you succeed.