Up on the hills of Pepperdine University’s Malibu campus are neighborhoods reserved for faculty housing.
However, when some professors go abroad, they rent their homes to students during the academic year. The students who live in these faculty homes end up being neighbors with their professors.
“I feel like it’s the best of both worlds,” said Ella Fay, a junior integrated marketing communication major. “I’m right on campus, but I get more independence and more space.”
These students have the unique experience of living on campus without the limitations of visitation hours, roommates or the high price tag of dorms.
Finding a Home Away from Home
Fay lives in faculty housing and is renting from Theatre Professor Hollace Starr, who is in Florence. Junior biology major Madison Bay and junior English major Izzy Koo are renting from Biology Professor Donna Nofziger, who is in Switzerland. Queeny Zhang, a senior public relations major, is renting faculty housing from Humanities Professor Nicholas Cumming, who is in Heidelberg.
After students have fulfilled Pepperdine’s residency requirements, many students choose to live off campus. Pepperdine can only house about 68% of its student population, so off-campus housing is the reality for many upperclassmen. However, finding affordable housing in Malibu that is near campus is incredibly difficult.
Between the potential dangers of commuting down Pacific Coast Highway or Malibu Canyon Road and the expensive price of Malibu real estate, some students want to be as close to campus as possible.
“This felt like the best way to kind of meet in the middle there,” Fay said. “I still get to live technically off campus and have my own space and my own room and it’s less expensive, while also being essentially on campus and making it really easy to get access.”
Across the country, one of the most important factors to university housing is its proximity to campus, New York Times writer Kevin Williams wrote in a February 2024 article.
However, only a lucky few students get to live in faculty housing. After deciding faculty housing was the best option for them, these students went through some logistics to arrange to rent from Pepperdine professors.
Queeny Zhang, a senior public relations major, works on homework from her bedroom in a faculty house. Photo by Rochelle Williams
“We would come and view the house,” Zhang said. “The next time it would be looking at the contracts and coming to like a middle ground with rules and regulations.”
These students discussed details for their rental contracts, including deposits, utilities, rent and where they could park, Zhang said. Professors have their own arrangements to make before they can hand over the keys to their house.
“We had to pack up a lot of our stuff, almost as if we were moving,” Religion Professor Timothy Willis said. “Being a long-distance landlord, there were certain things we had to arrange with neighbors to say ‘Hey if something comes up can you be on call to respond quickly?’”
After all the details are figured out, students move in and finally get to make themselves feel at home among their faculty neighbors.
“The hard part about college sometimes is that it doesn’t feel so homey,” Koo said. “You’re so far away from home. There’s something different about just living in a house that I realized … I appreciate the homey-ness.”
Students are not the only ones who feel the benefits of renting faculty housing. Renting to students allowed Willis to have someone to care for his beagle, Bilbo, and allowed him to help Pepperdine students get housing while he was overseas.
“It seemed like there was this greater need among students to be able to find a place,” Willis said.
Professors are People, too
All Pepperdine students interact with faculty in a classroom setting, but getting to know professors at home is different.
“Seeing [a professor] in a different environment was cool and brings a different level of intimacy, which is special to Pepperdine,” Koo said.
Junior IMC major Ella Fay looks out into the distance while sitting in the living room of her faculty house. Photo by Rochelle Williams
Interacting with their professors at home is a family affair as students often see faculty members out with their spouses or kids, Fay said.
“It humanizes [professors] more,” Fay said. “You know, I see them out with their kids, I recognize them on campus and I’ll be like ‘Oh, OK those are one of my neighbors,’ so it makes them feel more like ‘OK, they’re just a person just like me.’”
Pepperdine’s close student-faculty relationship increases student morale in and out of the classroom. By getting to know their neighbors, students living in faculty housing feel more connected to the Pepperdine community.
Students are more engaged on campuses when they have closer relationships with faculty, Paul Umbach and Matthew Wawrzynsk wrote in a March 2005 Research in Higher Education study.
The faculty in these neighborhoods care for their student-neighbors. Many of their neighbors check in on them and invite them to gatherings in the community, Zhang said.
For faculty members and students alike, renting faculty housing creates unique connections. Willis has rented his home to students three times.
“[Renting to students] just kind of furthered relationships,” Willis said. “With some, you’d realize ‘Oh, they are good and responsible in these things.’”
Faculty Housing vs Pepperdine Housing
Although these students live on campus, technically they do not live in Pepperdine housing. The lack of a resident advisor (RA) and the rules that come with living in one of Pepperdine’s on-campus housing options also make their experience in faculty housing special.
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“We’re so intentional in HRL [Housing and Residence Life] about having student leaders,” Maura Page, director of Residence Life, said. “Everything we do in HRL is really well assessed and we really look for effective, evidence-based practices for engaging students and caring for students.”
In Pepperdine’s dorms, RAs work with residents to increase community engagement, resolve conflict, ensure people follow the housing rules and serve as a resource for students, Page said. When living off-campus, students must work among themselves to live well together.
“It makes me feel more like I’m living on my own, which I kind of enjoy in the sense that it forces me to have that responsibility and maintenance,” Fay said. “It’s also different because if we have an issue, there’s no one for us to necessarily go to, as like if we had an RA we would go to them.”
The separation from campus and living on one’s own isn’t necessarily a negative thing; for some students, it’s their first taste of independence.
This sign hangs in the kitchen of junior English major Izzy Koo and junior biology major Madison Bay’s faculty house. Photo by Rochelle Williams
“This is my first time having my own room and having that privacy is just really nice,” Zhang said. “You’re not always in school 24/7, because when I was dorming I felt the stress of like if I’m on campus I’m so close to the library I should study.”
Getting to live in faculty housing lets students have a separation between home and school and allows them to host their peers whenever they want.
“It never is quite the same as being able to have a house to welcome people into,” Bay said.
Rochelle Williams produced this story in in Jour 490, Advanced Storytelling, during the Spring 2024 semester under the supervision of Dr. Christina Littlefield.
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