If you live in the Heritage complex, have attended any residence life events or spend time in public areas on campus, you have probably encountered Marisa Infield, a Union University graduate who was recently hired as the new residence director for the Heritage complex.
Infield is a bright, energetic caring individual with a genuine heart for people and a passion for community—especially the type of community you find at Union. Prior to this position, she worked for five years as an after-school director in inner-city Knoxville, an experience that strongly shaped her values surrounding the idea of community.
“The kids would come to my program, and then at the end of the day would sometimes come to my house, or I would be driving around the neighborhood and see them in the area, and I think the depth of relationship grew a lot quicker because I was living where I was working,” Infield said. “I just think there’s so much relational value to doing work in a communal form.”
Living where you work is central to Union’s residence life program, which holds itself to a high standard and tradition of excellence. ResLife welcomes students to campus with joy and enthusiasm and desires to make each student feel known and loved during their time here. ResLife commits itself to community values and people-focused service, purposefully creating a program with the goal of enriching student life.
My first experience with ResLife was overwhelming—a swarm of eager individuals surrounding my car to carry my belongings inside my new dorm, all while enthusiastically introducing themselves and welcoming me to college. I panicked slightly until meeting my resident advisor, a calm, welcoming, and smiling face who quickly helped me begin to make the transition to college life. From then on, my experience with ResLife has been overwhelmingly positive, primarily due to the people I’ve encountered who make the program what it is.
Infield is the perfect example of one of these people, and she speaks to the nature of this program, emphasizing the core values that she and the other residence directors embody.
“I feel like the team is very prayerful, and so it’s not, like ‘okay, this is what we do just because we do it.’ We want everything to be very purposeful, and we want to be led by prayer, and I think everyone is so open to that,” Infield said.
As the only new residence director joining the team this school year, Infield also acknowledges the positivity surrounding new perspectives and ideas that can continuously enrich and refine the ResLife program.
“I think there’s a lot of autonomy to what we do, like, genuinely everyone that I have worked with as I have stepped onto this team is so, like, open to new ideas and open to what’s fresh,” Infield said.
These shared values and open, positive environment all work together to unify Infield and her team toward a common goal of bringing the Gospel to each student they encounter at Union. Infield contributes much to this goal through her passion for community and desire for deep relational connections.
“In really communal environments where you’re living with that person, like, day-in day-out, where you’re seeing that person in the good, the bad and ugly, there’s a lot more room for discipleship and, like, actually sharing the Gospel,” Infield said. “It’s a lot more authentic than just, like, a one-time interaction.”
Infield’s personal goals and vision for the Heritage complex are beautifully intertwined with these overarching observations about the ResLife community.
“When I was praying in July before students got here, I was just praying that Heritage especially would be filled with people and that people would be known. … Praying against isolation, praying against fear … that people would be known so that they could know God more,” Infield said.
These prayers are also part of long-term goals and desires that Infield wants to see people get out of their experiences with Res Life, desires for both her resident advisors and her students.
“I really want the idea of building community not to be just … because we want community at Union, but because we see the beauty of community at Union,” Infield said. “So, as RAs graduate and as students graduate, I want to see that they are, like, mobilized to bring that community into wherever they’re at next.”
Brianna Pittman, a junior social work major working in her second year as a resident advisor in the Heritage complex, gets to see Infield’s heart for community firsthand.
“She’s just really open to hearing feedback and collaborating with people,” Pittman said. “She’s like ‘What do you think about this? Would this work well?’ And every time we meet she’s like, ‘Tell me about your residents, who’s in your building? Are you getting to know them?’”
“That’s just so cool to me because, like, she doesn’t have to do that,” Pittman said.
