Two professors moved into the East Wheelock last fall with their son and their two dogs.
Creative Writing Professor Cleopatra Mathis and Visiting Film Studies Professor Bill Phillips began their stint as live-in advisors to the cluster at the beginning of Fall term.
They took over for French and Italian Professor Marianne Hirsch and History Professor Leo Spitzer, who stepped down at the end of last Spring term after a year with the program.
Mathis and Phillips intend to complete a three-year term in their house adjoining the cluster and then return to regular teaching duties.
The transition to life in the East Wheelock Cluster, while time-consuming, was not as difficult as the two had imagined.
"I thought we'd be living in a fishbowl, without any privacy, but it's been quite nice," Phillips said.
Even living in close proximity to Alpha Delta and Chi Heorot fraternity houses hasn't presented any problems or unexpected evening events.
"The only communication we've had with them was when one brother wanted to know about our electric fence for our dog," Mathis said.
Both acknowledged that their positions with the cluster added an enormous amount of work to their lives. Mathis spent her leave term in her new residence, arranging Cluster programs which kept her busy, despite the fact that she did not have to teach any courses.
She does think that her workload will decrease as the program become more developed.
"I think that as students come to better understand the program and become more involved, they can start running events," she said.
Mathis said she and Phillips would like to change the perception of the cluster as a "stilted academic environment" and get more students involved in the various planned activities.
The two said that the program was not intended to over-intellectualize the campus or downplay the importance of fraternities, but to give faculty and students to interact outside the classroom.
"We've had a number of events in the house to make students feel comfortable. We want to give students a more home-like ambiance here," Mathis said.
To accomplish this, Phillips and Mathis regularly have 15 students over for faculty-student dinners with professors to increase interaction. In addition, they host receptions and lectures in Brace Commons -- such as a reception for Oliver Stone last weekend.
Students living in the cluster admit that they have not taken full advantage of the program.
"I don't remember a lot of events in fall, but it seems that this term there have been much more Cluster activities. Most of them are movie nights, which [aren't] a very big deal," said Will Lamson '00.
Another supercluster resident, Paul Biggs '01 said, "I haven't participated in that many events, but those that I go to, I usually enjoy."
Mathis comes to the Wheelock program after chairing the Creative Writing program, which she established at the College. She has written four volumes of poetry and is currently working on one she hopes will be published in 1999.
Phillips is a screenwriter who graduated from the College in 1971. He has taught screenwriting courses at Dartmouth since 1991, when he finished directing a movie in Los Angeles. He jokingly acknowledged that, unlike his wife, he does not have tenure.
"If she's losing an argument she can always hold that over me," he said laughing.
