Higher Education News from the Collegiate Way

Residential Colleges & the Renewal of Campus Life

These news items about residential colleges, house systems, and the renewal of university life are posted for readers of the Collegiate Way website. For more about residential colleges and collegiate universities please visit the main Collegiate Way page.

Collegiate Way News · Subset: Pastoral Care

¶ This topical subset contains news and recommendations on the provision of pastoral care to students and on the general support of student and faculty welfare in residential colleges and collegiate house systems. (Return to the complete news index.)

• Conversation and Integration in College Life (7 June 2009)

  ‘Without conversation and cooperation between subjects and disciplines, the achievements and riches of this place and others like it would be so much more limited than they are.’

• So Sad (5 June 2009)

  Are you looking after the welfare of your graduate students?

• A Toolbox for Every College Office (5 June 2009)

  Household hints for managing a Great Household (where you’re always teaching).

• “In lilac-time, in lilac-time” (15 May 2009)

  ‘He that delights to plant and set, leaves after-ages in his debt.’

• “You may blame Aphrodite” (9 February 2009)

  You’re always teaching. Even on Valentine’s Day.

• Academic Advising in House Systems and Residential College Systems (19 January 2009)

  Decentralized student advising is a characteristic feature of collegiate universities.

• If You’ve Been Reading Along, You Already Know This (15 January 2009)

  ‘College students find comfort in their pets during hard times.’

• College Christmas, College Home (24 December 2008)

  A residential college is a great household. It should feel like one at Christmastime.

• Feed Them and They Will Come (6 December 2008)

  And if you light candles, they may even dress up.

• House Systems as Mutual Aid Societies (10 October 2008)

  What can house systems offer to students in community colleges?

• Avast, Ye Scurvy Dogs (19 September 2008)

  If your college has no playful traditions, matey, why would anyone want to belong to it?

• Ryan’s Collegiate Way of Living Now Available Online (19 June 2008)

  The best volume of essays on residential college life is now available online.

• More on House Systems in Secondary Schools (3 March 2008)

  ‘It is a family approach where younger students look up to the older ones.’

• A Residential College is a Great Household (21 February 2008)

  Membership, not residence, is the key relation, but the language of membership is conspicuously absent from most of American higher education.

• Woodrow Wilson: British Colleges, German Universities (3 February 2008)

  ‘They have never thought of the university as a community of teachers and pupils.’

• The Collegiate Way Comes to Birmingham (20 January 2008)

  The University of Alabama at Birmingham could be a model for other public campuses.

• Magistri: Hodgson of Newnham and Stewart of Lowell (12 December 2007)

  Humane profiles of the life and work of two residential college masters.

• ‘A Large and Liberal Education’ (22 September 2007)

  Excellent essays on residential college values, from Trinity College, Melbourne.

• Small Pirate and Lesse Greeke (16 September 2007)

  If your college has no playful traditions, why would anyone want to belong to it?

• Thawing Cold Fear in the New Year (1 September 2007)

  ‘A largess universal, like the sun / His liberal eye doth give to every one.’

• “Golden lads and girls all must” (31 August 2007)

  On ceremony, state funerals, history, and education.

• A Collegiate House System for an Oklahoma School (11 August 2007)

  More on the secondary-school counterpart of the residential college movement.

• Harry Potter and the Collegiate Way of Living (20 July 2007)

  Many people come to the residential college idea by way of the Hogwarts houses.

• On the Virtues of the Harvard House System (6 June 2007)

  ‘There I experienced formal dinners celebrating everything from new sophomores to illustrious past House residents, apple pickings and barbecues, and dining hall conversations about politics and philosophy that went on late into the night.’

• House Systems and Communal Dining (20 May 2007)

  ‘Ministers believe social and emotional intelligence classes will help stop children from turning into louts.’

• “The beautiful and death-struck year” (17 May 2007)

  Is your campus a warm and friendly Shropshire, or a cold London?

• Restoring the Interpersonal in Higher Education (9 May 2007)

  Newman and Buckley offer a Catholic perspective on the value of residential colleges.

• The Question Mark Kid (20 April 2007)

  On crime, history, education, and understanding in university life.

• Graduate Tutors for Princeton’s Residential Colleges (11 April 2007)

  Graduate students in residence will enrich the life of the campus.

• Ole Miss and the Collegiate Zeitgeist (7 April 2007)

  Residence life on American campuses has ‘come full circle.’

• Families Enrich the Life of Every Residential College (9 March 2007)

  Ustinov College at the University of Durham shows the way.

• Catholic Residential Colleges in Secular Universities (22 February 2007)

  A colloquium to be hosted in 2008 by St. John’s College at the University of Sydney.

• “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” (8 February 2007)

  ‘Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!’

• House Systems in Secondary Schools (7 February 2007)

  The Goleta Valley Junior High School in California has created a house system.

• The Social Psychology of Education: Adults Matter (3 December 2006)

  The more grown-ups talk to young people, the smarter the young people get.

• Uncovering Genuine Diversity (20 November 2006)

  A bookshelf is the clearest window into a person’s soul.

• McDonalds Does Not Have a Gong (25 October 2006)

  But at least one residential college dining hall does.

• Avoiding Self-Parody (15 October 2006)

  They’ll always make fun, but that doesn’t mean we have to provide them with material.

• Small Pirate and Lesse Greeke, Arrr (18 September 2006)

  Fill your college with joy, love, laughter, and pirates (of doom).

• Chariots of Fire: College Sports as it Should Be (14 September 2006)

  An exemplary model of sport and collegiate charity from Cambridge University.

• Students Relish Residential Colleges (30 August 2006)

  More collegiate news and views from ‘The Australian.’

• Tea: The Foundation of Residential College Life (28 August 2006)

  Begin with tea, and everything else in residential college life will follow.

• Social Isolation on the Rise in America (23 June 2006)

  Residential colleges can offer strong social networks that may be missing elsewhere.

• Psychological Resilience and Adult Support (3 May 2006)

  Strong adult support can cancel out the effects of ‘bad’ genes.

• 2000 Freshmen in One Building Complex is a Bad Idea (2 February 2006)

  The East Valley Tribune asks if ASU’s McAllister Village will be good for freshmen.

• “All I ask is a tall ship” (28 January 2006)

  On the Challenger, collegiate memory, and liberal education.

• Collegiate Charity from Central Arkansas (27 January 2006)

  UCA provides a fine example of how residential colleges can do good.

• Feed Them and They Will Come … at Midnight (9 December 2005)

  Murray State University’s tradition of breakfast at midnight is an example any residential college system can follow.

• Yale Colleges Nod to Graduate Student Membership (4 October 2005)

  The idea of graduate membership in the residential colleges is broached again.

• Residential Colleges Make Life Easier at Miami (1 August 2005)

  The University of Miami’s student newspaper sings the praises of Miami’s colleges.

• Craving Community: Learning from facebook.com (3 April 2005)

  If you’re not clued in to facebook.com, you’re not clued in to undergraduate life.

• Craving Community: Learning From Harry Potter (2 April 2005)

  The boy wizard has a lot to teach us about the value of collegiate life.

• Ribbons, Signature Pages, and Institutional Memory (15 March 2005)

  Simple ways to sustain loyalty and a sense of belonging in a residential college.

• A Week in the Life of a Residential College Master (14 January 2005)

  From pastoral care to plumbing, a college master looks after it all.

• Social Capital, Memory, and Collegiate Inheritance (9 January 2005)

  On life, death, and entering into the inheritance of a place.

• The Role of Residential College Deans (in a nutshell) (3 January 2005)

  ‘To be fierce to the foolish and kind to the crumpled.’

• A Death in the College (18 September 2004)

  Grief is the price we pay for love.

• Puritan Wisdom on Community Life (5 July 2004)

  Is John Winthrop’s Puritan social wisdom out-moded, or avant-garde?

• Insight From a Great University Reformer (15 March 2004)

  ‘I’ve been struck by how little the average administrator, particularly the average president, knows about undergraduate life at his or her institution.’

• Residential Life at Berkeley Leaves Much to be Desired (13 December 2003)

  ‘Maybe it was foolish of us to think that we could find some definite place for ourselves in the first semester on campus.’

• Collegiate Life and the Forgotten Graduate Students (18 November 2003)

  Residential colleges need graduate students, says Nicholas Stephanopoulos.

• Joy, Love, Laughter, and Doom (13 September 2003)

  The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.

• Collegiate Tip-of-the-Month: Personality Tests (8 September 2003)

  They’re an easy way to get to know your students, and for them to get to know you.

• Looking Beneath the Smiles, and Thawing Cold Fear (12 August 2003)

  ‘A largess universal, like the sun / His liberal eye doth give to every one.’

• Summer Introductions Give a Head Start on the Year (9 August 2003)

  Your students should feel at home in their college, even before they arrive.

• Tip-of-the-Month: Fire Alarms and the Front Line (23 February 2003)

  Shared adversity brings people together, especially in the middle of the night.

• Creeping Managerialism versus Cohesive Social Life (16 February 2003)

  Good leadership is personal and empathetic, not managerial.

• Social Cohesion Helps Prevent Psychological Injury (10 January 2003)

  The work of military psychiatrists has much to offer university educators.

• Tip-of-the-Month: Your Own Holiday Cards! (10 December 2002)

  It’s an easy way to brighten the end of the collegiate calendar year.

• Tip-of-the-Month: Counteract Age Segregation (15 October 2002)

  Most advocates of ‘diversity’ ignore the importance of age diversity on campus.

• The Journal of College and Character (14 August 2002)

  Collegiate notes from the Center for the Study of Values in Student Development.

• The Role of a Residential College Master (7 August 2002)

  A profile of the work of Stephen Toulmin, master of North College at USC.

• Reporting to the Commandant (Collegiate Life at Annapolis) (17 July 2002)

  Do civilian colleges want any of the virtues that military colleges possess?

• “Do you have a sewing machine?” (11 July 2002)

  Wisdom from Polly Stone Buck on the pastoral care of residential college students.

• Collegiate Tip-of-the-Month: Adopt a College Cat (19 June 2002)

  Are college cats the key to world peace and universal enlightenment?

• Collegiate Tip-of-the-Month: Closing the Academic Year (18 May 2002)

  Welcoming committees, summer plans, commencement, and more.

• Fundamental Decency, and, The Students Shall Lead (10 May 2002)

  Good students know what kind of educational environment they want.

• “Hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth, / Six parts gin to one part vermouth.” (3 April 2002)

  Campus alcohol abuse is, sadly, not a laughing matter.

• Tip-of-the-Month: Love is in the Air (Like It or Not) (1 February 2002)

  Valentine’s Day is coming around again. Is your college ready?

• “Food is the currency of all social transactions…” (18 January 2002)

  Stay your students with flagons, comfort them with apples.

• Residence Life at UT–Austin Has Little to Offer (12 November 2001)

  When students tell you ‘high school was better’ then something is terribly wrong.

• Collegiate Life: Feed Them and They Will Come (5 October 2001)

  Food is the currency of all social transactions in a residential college.

• Ryan’s A Collegiate Way of Living Now Available (4 September 2001)

  Mark Ryan’s collection of essays is the best book in print on residential college life.

• Robert Leamnson on Teaching and Learning (21 August 2001)

  ‘Students need affection from college teachers, not as parents or lovers, but as adults who approve of them as learners and persons.’

• Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds (12 March 2001)

  Richard Light shows us how to improve undergraduate education.

• Duke University Campus Life: The Willimon Report (27 November 2000)

  Duke’s problems with alcohol abuse and anti-intellectualism are national problems.