Last October, Daniele Podini was worried about a missing pumpkin.

Podini, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Forensic Sciences, was spending his second year living in Amsterdam Hall as a Faculty-in-Residence, along with his 7-year-old son Jack. Last Halloween, he and Jack painted a pumpkin to look like a minion from “Despicable Me” and placed it outside their residence hall room door — only to find it stolen.

“I thought that maybe someone thought it was trash or something,” he said. 

Podini is now in his third year living in Amsterdam Hall as a member of the program, which houses faculty members in residence halls to host student programming, like dessert-filled extravaganzas and meet-and-greets with professors’ pets. He said after discovering the pumpkin’s abduction last year, he emailed all of the residence hall’s residents to tell them that Jack’s pumpkin was missing.

In response, students brought clusters of pumpkins and treats to make up for it at the door.

“Eventually a student found it and brought it back, it was really sweet and a lot of little trinkets and notes and treats for Jack,” Podini said.

Podini said he wound up in the residence hall since he was looking for a place to live and heard about openings in the program. The program’s website lists nine current faculty members, eight of whom live in Foggy Bottom residence halls and one of whom lives on the Mount Vernon Campus.

He said he used his living situation to put himself out there and interact with students, which he hopes makes students more comfortable talking to other professors in their academic lives.

“Although I’m convinced I’m very cool, I don’t necessarily think that some of your age might agree with that,” Podini said. “So it’s kind of a challenge, in a way, to be able to interact effectively and have your generation people kind of be happy to interact with me.” 

Like most other GW community members who live in Foggy Bottom but take or teach classes on the Vern, Podini travels to his courses on the Mount Vernon Express. He said he partly chose to be a Faculty-in-Residence to make his commute more convenient — he dashes across 23rd Street to catch the shuttle in front of Tompkins Hall whenever he has class.

Podini said students come over to play FIFA with Jack — who attends an elementary school in Georgetown — after meeting him in the hallways. To decorate his GW dwellings, Podini said he brought his own furniture and artwork instead of using the gray plastic kitchen chairs that GW supplies to residents.

He said he hosts events, like cooking lessons with a handful of regulars, where he teaches students how to make dishes like homemade pizza, gnocchi and pasta in his own kitchen to make the residence hall experience feel like a home away from home for students.

“It’s something that you can take advantage in different ways, right, from creating connections to feeling at home,” Podini said.

Alex Dent, a professor of anthropology and international relations, said he lives with his wife, two sons of 14 and 16, respectively, and dog Oz on the 10th floor of District House. Dent said as a Faculty-in-Residence, he tries to provide community and structure for students without being “too present” — at times taking a backseat and stepping in when students need his help.

He said he strikes this balance by holding optional events in the building, the most successful of which involve free food giveaways.

“I gave away like 26 bagels,” Dent said, referring to a bagel giveaway in the beginning of the semester. “I think it took like 13 minutes.”

Dent said other popular events were “dog related,” where students watched a dog documentary, ate pizza and, of course, met Oz. Dent said he is planning events for cat lovers as well, where he will screen a documentary about cats in his apartment and give away a gift card for a cat cafe.

Dent said since his sons — who attend Jackson-Reed High School in Tenleytown — are more than 6 feet tall, they blend in with the rest of the students. Those students are often confused about his own presence in District House, he said.

“There were some funny moments right when we moved in, where students looked at me like I was the dad that moved their student in and left,” Dent said. “I was like, ‘No, no, I live here.'”

Dent said the apartment space has three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a kitchen, common area and in-unit laundry. He said he and his wife have hung artwork on the walls and brought over their old furniture from their previous home in Columbia Heights, making the dorm feel like home. Their old house had started to break down, with the air conditioning not working and his sons sharing a room, prompting their move at the end of July, he said.

Dent said he has tailored his programming in part toward his own interests, holding soccer-themed events in his suite, like a Washington Spirit watch party he plans to put together since his sons play soccer. 

“When folks are coming into the apartment and having a meal, I think it’s a little tiny taste of home but without the parental energy,” Dent said.

Deniece Dortch, an assistant professor of higher education administration, said she is spending her third year in Thurston Hall. She said she used to live in the “very, very expensive” Southwest Waterfront. She said she also wanted the position since it lets her combine academic and personal interests since her primary studies already surround the lives of college students. 

Dortch said once, she was writing a paper with a colleague in her Thurston apartment when the scent of something burning filled the air. Dortch hadn’t accidentally left the oven on, and there wasn’t a barbecue taking place in a nearby backyard. Instead, a first-year student had put ramen into the microwave without any water in the shared kitchen of Dortch’s floor. 

“I was like, ‘Something is burning,’” Dortch said. “My unit is not that far from the kitchen, so I walk out and it’s smoke everywhere.”

Dortch said her apartment is larger than the typical Thurston room, with its own kitchen, an island in the center and fabric stools for people to kick their shoes off and relax on. She said plants and paintings by Black artists decorate the surrounding walls.

Dortch said she annually takes students to events, like Jazz Fest on the Wharf, Alvin Ailey at the Kennedy Center and H Street Festival. She said she regularly hosts events, like Sugar Tuesdays on her Thurston floor’s lounge, where she provides students with “sweet treats” and introduces them to local and Black-owned businesses, like 5-12 Desserts, which often draws students from outside Thurston.

“Surprisingly, it’s more students who are not in the building who participate in that program than students actually in the building,” Dortch said.