Residential Curriculum

It addresses things that are hard to address in a classroom course, that aren’t addressed directly in the Common Curriculum, and yet are nevertheless necessary.

Professor of Social Sciences (Political Science) Terry Nardin on the value of the Residential Curriculum.

Professor Terry Nardin

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We really care about the development of the whole person.

Dean of Students Dave Stanfield describes the aims of the Residential Curriculum.

Dave Stanfield

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Community Living and Engagement

Students were encouraged to get involved with student organisations, become an active community member and engage with their fellow students, faculty and staff. This generated a sense of responsibility and ownership of the community, and helped students to learn how to be a leader and a collaborator.

Living on campus contains an inherent responsibility to others who also share the space. Students are given opportunities to work together with others to better the community experience for all, as well as feel a sense of ownership for contributing positively to community life. Being an engaged community member provides an opportunity for everyone to explore the impact they can have within both Yale-NUS and the greater society.

Students develop a sense of belonging to and responsibility for Yale-NUS and the wider community. By living within the close-knit Yale-NUS family on campus, each student’s identity, background and experience bring a unique contribution to the overall community. Students can find their belonging in many places and in many ways – with suitemates and through relationships with peers, faculty and staff, by joining student organisations or championing causes important to them, and in their classes and majors.

One example of a Community Living and Engagement programme was held during spring 2023 Finals Week, when Cendana staff hosted a ‘Tunisian Cooking Event’ led by Tunisian exchange student Mehdi Mezlini. Cendana students gathered in The Nest, Cendana’s buttery, to cook and eat two Tunisian dishes: Ojja and Tunisian Salad. The event aimed to expose students to a new palate and teach them to cook a dish they might not otherwise have come across in their day-to-day life in Singapore. Throughout the evening, attendees asked Mezlini about Tunisia, his family, ingredients in the dish and more.

The Community Living and Engagement pillar of the Residential Curriculum encouraged students to meaningfully engage with other members of Yale-NUS College. The ‘Tunisian Cooking Event’ brought together exchange students and current students to learn and eat together as a diverse campus community.

Intercultural Engagement

The diverse make-up of the College’s community was an important part of the Yale-NUS experience, and allowed students to explore and engage with a large number of cultures and identities. The DOS and SAO teams facilitated programming to bring students of different backgrounds together and learn about each other’s cultures.

Students practise intercultural engagement by committing to a process of learning and exploring their own and other’s identities in order to demonstrate accountability and prioritise inclusion.

Intercultural engagement is a critical aspect of nurturing culturally conscious students, and accountable citizens of the world striving toward inclusion and respectful relationships. It is a significant dimension of the Yale-NUS experience, given the highly unique and diverse make-up of the College community, and rapidly changing reality in a global landscape. This framework provides a foundation for students to cultivate an ongoing practice of self-reflection and learn to engage a process of ambiguity with curiosity and responsibility.

Intercultural engagement invites students to seek value in prioritising the process of learning above cultural competence and mastery. This process also acknowledges the realities of social identity, power imbalance and privilege, and encourages students to seek a justice-oriented approach in striving for greater equity within society.

One of the main components on the Intercultural Engagement pillar was Diversity Week, an annual week-long programme on events and activities to celebrate the community’s diversity and stimulate discussion about issues of diversity.

From workshops and dialogue sessions, to interactive art activities and exhibitions, Diversity Week cultivates spaces of learning and growth for the whole community.

Read more about the Intercultural Engagement programme Diversity Week by Nageen Rameez (Class of 2024).

Diversity Week 2023

Wellness

The Wellness team within SAO taught students care for self and for others, how to find support and how to manage challenges in their personal and academic life.

Students learn to be aware about the state of their well-being and develop familiarity with resources to improve individual and collective wellness. Student wellness is an important aspect of higher education to motivate purposefulness, flourishing and self-actualisation. It prepares students for a meaningful life, which is a key component in helping a person thrive.

Yale-NUS understands that wellness includes the capacity to be self-aware, the resilience to tackle challenging situations, and the pro-activeness to seek out resources when in need. Wellness also encompasses community well-being, where students develop and apply the skills necessary to contribute to a culture of care on campus.

With the Sleep Challenge 2023, the Wellness office was able to further increase students’ awareness about their state of wellbeing as sleep impacts not just physical wellbeing but also mental and emotional wellbeing.

Yoon Thiri from SAO’s Wellness Committee describes one of the highlights of the Wellness programme.

Sleep Challenge 2023

Students thoroughly enjoyed meeting the three lovely dogs and learning more about animal-assisted therapy.

Thiri recalls another Wellness initiative, this time an animal therapy session.

Take a Paws

A Signature Component

The Residential Curriculum was a signature component of the Yale-NUS experience, taking the students’ learning experience beyond the formal classroom setting and helping them mature into responsible and independent young adults.

Our Dean of Students Office and all of the programmes they offer, offer that scaffolding of how to become a young adult, how to go through those adult years.

Professor of Social Sciences (Urban Studies) Jane Jacobs describes how the Residential Curriculum contributed to the completion of the students’ transition to full adulthood.

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Credit: The illustrations and artwork featured in the videos for this story were created by Yanni Chia Joy Yang (Class of 2021).