With first-year students set to arrive in a few weeks, Wcislo shared his hopes in the accompanying podcast for the upcoming school year and said, “It really feels awesome being the first dean of the Commons.”
Located in the heart of the Commons, the Dean’s Residence is both a home for the Wcislo family and a launching pad for living-learning interactions between faculty and students.
A variety of activities are in the works to be hosted in the home that include dinner events and sessions on topics such as video games. These events will be designed to encourage informal communication and learning that will build beyond what takes place in the classroom.
For more on Wcislo's philosophy and insights beyond the podcast, read below. 
The concept of faculty and students having a living-learning relationship is not a new one but is “as old as the academy is,” Wcislo said. The idea behind the Commons is easily found at universities in the United Kingdom and at Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
For Wcislo, the model he has had in the back of his mind is a really “successful first-year seminar in the College of Arts and Science” where the professor and students feed off each other’s energies and learn together. Additionally, studies on Vanderbilt’s Visions orientation program provided evidence that students enjoy “greater accessibility” to faculty members and that a professor becomes “a person” in the eyes of their Visions group. Thus, it is the hope that having faculty-in-residence will forge more personable relationships for greater learning.
Activities with Wcislo and faculty in the Dean’s Residence will ideally “create a diversity of social networks.”  And Wcislo also said, “Once you network, you begin toencounter learning and teaching opportunities.” Wcislo said he expects to learn “a heck of a lot more” about students this year than he has in the past 20 years during life in the Commons. 
 
