Kevin White To Live On Campus In Spring

For those who haven't read The Chronicle today, Director of Athletics Kevin White and his wife, Jane, will live in the recently renovated Few Quadrangle on West Campus this spring. White, who has been in Durham since May and will stay on campus through the summer until construction on his new house is completed, was first approached by Steve Nowicki, the University's vice provost and dean of undergraduate education.

As part of his Faculty-in-Residence programming responsibilities, White will plan weekly interactions with students—and it's hard to imagine most of them won't be athletics-based. But when I asked the former Notre Dame athletic director about moving to campus, he was most excited about trying out the students' dining options, including the controversial Panda Express.

I talked with Nowicki yesterday about White's temporary home, and I've reproduced some of the conversation after the jump. Before we get there, though, what do you think about White mingling with students?

How did the whole process come about?

I had heard through the grapevine that Kevin and Jane were considering the possibility of looking for some housing while they build their own house-they're living in a small house off campus. I just sent an e-mail to Kevin and said, 'Would you be interested?' He and Jane thought about it, and their first concern was that they weren't sure they would be allowed to have their two dogs. We assured them they'd be able to keep their pets, and they talked it over and decided that they would give it a try. It will be a short-term stay, unlike typical Faculty-in-Residence stays. But I actually thought it would be a great opportunity for Kevin to get to know Duke students and Duke students to get to know Kevin.

What's unique about this situation, with White being such a high-profile faculty member?

It's definitely different from our typical Faculty-in-Residence model, but the whole Few apartment thing is different, too. We have a Faculty-in-Residence on East, which is a fairly well-established program, and we have a couple of faculty living on West.... We're looking for interesting models for what to do what with that apartment, and it may be that we do something a little different with the traditional Faculty-in-Residence there, and certainly having Kevin move in there gives us a chance to see how that works. He's thinking about bringing players and coaches in, which I'm sure will be very interesting to a bunch of Duke students.