The Role of a Residential College Master
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
7 August 2002 (collegiateway.org) — The role of residential college master is a varied one, and it is a role that touches more aspects of university life than almost any other. A news article by Meg Sullivan, originally published in the journal Humanities, profiles Stephen Toulmin, a distinguished philosopher and historian and sometime Master of North College at the University of Southern California. From maintaining academic standards, to providing late-night pizza breaks in his apartment, to pushing university administrators to replace worn out furniture, Sullivan’s profile shows Toulmin carrying out the full range of a college master’s responsibilities. Why does he bother? “Students who go to class are introduced to a lot of intellectual techniques in one particular discipline or another. What they can learn by living in a community is that a lot of these techniques are not self-justifying—and they all have to be related back to the ways in which they affect the qualities of our lives, our personal lives and the lives of our community.”
