Mayfield Lodges

Community Description

The Mayfield Experience. Ten students, one lodge, one project!  The Mayfield Living Learning Community seeks to empower students with a platform for pursuing their service and learning interests.  The Mayfield’s provide students an opportunity to create a self-generated, self-directed group project with the guidance of a faculty advisor of their choice.  To apply groups must create and present a detailed proposal of their project’s purpose, goals, and timeline.  Following a panel style interview process, groups with well-formed and well-articulated projects may be admitted into the community.  Upon entry into the lodges, program requirements include monthly reports, weekly meetings, lectures with faculty and staff, regular meetings with faculty advisors and participation in educational programs for the campus and community at large.  For questions, contact one of the following: Nate Napier at nathaniel.e.napier@Vanderbilt.Edu , Joi Hayes at joi.a.hayes@vanderbilt.edu (Graduate Program Coordinators), or Traci R. Ray (Associate Director, Residential Education) at t.ray@vanderbilt.edu.

The Mayfield Lodge. The Mayfield Community resides in the Mayfield Place Lodges nestled subtly on the south side of the Highland Quadrangle Courtyard.  Preferably located near the Student Recreation Center and the Blair School of Music, Mayfield Place offers a unique living arrangement designed for 200 undergraduates living in 20 lodges with 10 residents each.  Each two-story lodge has 10 single bedrooms, a lush common area, two full-bathrooms, a microwave, a 21-inch stove, dish-sink, and a full-size refrigerator. Lodges fully air-conditioned and either carpeted or flushed with hardwood.  There are five bedrooms and one bath on each floor, and the floors are connected by an extending-wooden staircase. The living room area is full 12′ x 16′ and the kitchen is 4′ x 16′. The dimensions of the bedrooms are an agreeable 8′ x 12′.

The Mayfield Living Learning Program was instituted in order to provide aspiring, ambitious students a platform for which to pursue a self-generated, self-directed group project.  In order for admission into the community, groups must create and present a detailed proposal delineating their project’s purpose, goals, timeline and tangible deliverables.  Following a merit-based interview process, those groups with well-formed and presented projects are admitted into the community.  Thereafter, Curricular requirements that each lodge must fulfill include detailed monthly reports, weekly meetings, lectures with professors and professional staff, regular curricular meetings or working-dinners with faculty advisors or partners and participation in educational programs for the campus and community at large.  In the late fall and early spring, the “Mayfield Showcase” is held as both a part of the recruiting process and an education resource for the community at large.  At this showcase, current lodges present a booth-style, interactive presentation of their projects, normally utilizing tri-fold presentation boards as well as a plethora of other media including websites, videos and 3-D models which normally enhance the communicative efficacy.  The Mayfield Community continues to grow as new, increasingly innovative projects continue to supersede more conventional educational experiences at Vanderbilt.  This prestigious community embodies all of the tenets of the Vanderbilt Community Creed and continually commits to support these values set forth in their entirety.  Following completion of a year-long project, our scholars are both academically and socially edified through their Mayfield Experience and generally share deep, long-lasting relationships with their lodgemates and fellow ‘Mayfielders’.

History

In 1977, the Mayfield Place Lodges were constructed and named after Dr. George Mayfield.  During the 1988-1989 academic year, the Office of Residential and Judicial Affairs set aside six Mayfield Lodges for the purpose of creating the Living Learning Community program. Since 1988, the Office of Housing and Residential Education has increased the number of lodges participating in the program from six to twenty.  The Lodges are assigned to groups of ten students who live together in order to pursue a self-directed, yearlong program of educational activities, including, but not limited to, community service projects. Groups occupying Living Learning lodges may be single sex or coed.

Past Mayfield Projects

Mission/Goals

The Mayfield Living Learning Community provides opportunities for students to develop an understanding of and appreciation for living in a residential learning community.  First, a community of ten students – with the help of their advisor – sets specific learning goals, articulates a plan or project for achieving those goals, documents their activities in a monthly report, and evaluates their accomplishments with the Mayfield Living Learning Community Program Coordinator in a monthly meeting.  To assist in evaluating the quality of the program, participants are expected to complete the Quality of Life Survey and other research instruments. Second, Mayfield residents are expected to participate in programs consisting of community development and/or service learning, as relevant to their needs and as directed by the Mayfield Program Coordinators.  Third, through their projects, students come to understand the meaning of membership in a residential learning community.

Program Requirements

The Liaison.  Each lodge elects or appoints a liaison who attends on-on-one, bi-monthly progress meetings with on of  the Mayfield Program Coordinators for the lodges.  The schedule for these meetings is dependent on the availability of both parties and meeting times are arranged accordingly.  This lodge member will be responsible for both directing the group’s curriculum and service activities and holding ALL members of the Lodge responsible for participating in the program of study.

Monthly Progress Reports. At 6:00 pm CST on the 28th of each academic month, unless otherwise specified, each lodge turns in a monthly progress report to the Mayfield Program Coordinators.  Each lodge liaison is given direct access to a document or journal page entitled “The Mayfield Living Progress Report”.  This report will be a (roughly) 22 page document containing a cover page, a single Mayfield Program Council report page, and twenty subsequent pages – each page reserved for the monthly report of individual lodges.  The liaison is held responsible for the completion of each monthly report – however, the entire lodge is responsible for contributing to the writing and content for each report as directed by the liaison.

Mandatory Fall Orientation. Soon after the beginning of classes in the fall, a mandatory Mayfield orientation is held at Wilson Hall 103 in the early evening as specified by the Mayfield Program Coordinators.  Here, community leaders will cover general expectations as far as the academic portion of the program, coverage of faculty/staff advisor interaction guidelines, Mayfield Council elections and payment of dues, and introductions to the Housing staff and their expectations of you for the school year.

End of the Year Report. Each Lodge will be required submit an end of the year report by 6:00 PM on April 19th.  It has been carefully designed to not cause any overbearing extra work during the high stress end of the academic year.  The end of the year report consists of the following double spaced document containing: a cover page; a brief “Introduction and Premise” section describing the proposal/project, a list of goals for the year, and expectations of the Mayfield program; a brief, one page individual accounts detailing what was completed individually throughout the year, if personal expectations were meant, and – most importantly – what did you learn through the completion of this process; and a conclusion statement detailing the Mayfield lodge goals and expectations were met and what about the Mayfield program would you change to increase the amount of learning throughout.  Submission of the end of the year report will guarantee previously arranged housing placement for the next academic year and eliminate the chance of losing said future placement due to failure to complete the current Mayfield project.

Weekly Internal Lodge Meetings.Each lodge is required to hold a weekly meeting of all lodge members in order to keep the project running smoothly. These meetings should be used as a time to reflect on the nature of the projects as well as to coordinate logistics and simply communicate with lodgemates.  Past lodges have found that weekly meetings are essential for strong communication amongst all lodge members.   The liaisons will coordinate the timing and agenda for these meetings.  We suggest that meeting minutes be taken at each weekly meeting for documentation purposes in order to provide the proper evidence to the Mayfield Program Coordinators..  Faculty/Staff Advisors, site leaders and trusted associates should be invited to these meetings to both foster communication and provide additional resources for the lodge.

Advisor Involvement and Inclusion. Advisor involvement and inclusion is not an option – it is a requirement. Ideas for involving them include: invitations to meetings; to dinner at the lodge; to your community service site or to an activity or event you have planned.  Try to incorporate them as heavily as possible into the service-learning/living learning aspect of your project.  If they have some expert knowledge on the population you are serving, have them come in and provide a training session for the l

odge early in the semester.  They can serve as extremely valuable resources, and they can also learn from you and your experiences.

Mayfield Projects

Application Process

The application period has passed for the 2012-2013 academic year.