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: Readings on History and Theory

¶ This topical subset contains recommended readings on house systems and residential college systems that have been published outside the Collegiate Way website. (Return to the complete news index.)

• Collegiate Reading Recommendations (4 July 2009)

  Books to take to the beach or set beside your summer easy chair.

• Australian Residential College Research Reports (29 June 2009)

  The Australian Survey of Student Engagement looks at residential colleges.

• Portrait of a College Founder (8 April 2009)

  ‘Be not solitary; be not idle.’

• An Early Sighting of “the Collegiate Way of Living” (2 February 2009)

  ‘I cannot but say, I reckon the collegiate way of living in our English Universities, where lads have their particular tutors, as well as each house has a separate master, empowered to keep in order his own society, much to be preferred to the living so at large.’

• The Festival of Lessons and Carols from King’s (9 December 2008)

  Join millions of people around the world for this great residential college tradition.

• The Lost Colleges of the University of Coimbra (18 August 2008)

  Miguel Pires Prôa on the residential colleges of Coimbra, translated by Frank Cranmer.

• ‘A Renaissance in Collegiate Education?’ (12 July 2008)

  Donald Markwell on the importance of the collegiate way of living in Australia.

• 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.

• Bowles Hall and the Collegiate Way of Living (10 May 2008)

  ‘One of the problems of such an institution as the University of California is so to subdivide its student body that the advantages of the small group may be retained without sacrificing the even greater advantages of membership in a large university.’

• 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.’

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

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

• “Against Theme Halls” in Student Affairs Leader (15 November 2007)

  Themed housing is easy to sell, but in education what’s easy isn’t always best.

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

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

• The New York Times on Residential Colleges (29 July 2007)

  In the Education Life section, Bruce Weber reports on ‘The Residential Collage.’

• Collegiate Summer Reading: The Cambridge Colleges (8 July 2007)

  Take a photographic tour of one of the world’s original residential college systems.

• 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.’

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

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

• An American at Cambridge (30 April 2007)

  A sketch of Cambridge collegiate life from visiting American scholar Anthony Grafton.

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

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

• A History for Trevelyan College, Durham (21 December 2006)

  Susan Martin’s ‘Trevs: A Celebration of 40 Years’ has just been published.

• Hogwarts U: The Collegiate Way at Inside Higher Ed (28 November 2006)

  ‘The future of higher education may lie in the English-speaking world’s oldest model of university organization, writes Robert O’Hara.’

• Student Commentary on Yale’s Collegiate Expansion (11 October 2006)

  Well-reasoned proposals from students are always worth listening to.

• Princeton’s Tilghman on Residential Colleges (26 September 2006)

  A four-year collegiate system is the university’s most important development.

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

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

• What is a Residential College? (31 July 2006)

  Josephine Butler College at Durham gives us a good description.

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

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

• Jane Jacobs, 1916–2006: Voice for Neighborhood Life (25 April 2006)

  John Ruskin has some good company today.

• Secrets, Buried Treasure, and Collegiate Identity (22 March 2006)

  ‘There is a need in people to live with a secret place in their homes.’

• “See! This our fathers did for us” (17 February 2006)

  Princeton has a lot of money, and in Whitman College they’re spending it well. But as John Ruskin reminds us, it isn’t money that makes a building great.

• 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.

• Reach, Grasp (and Grasp), or What’s a University For? (9 January 2006)

  Is the University of South Carolina a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce?

• 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.

• For Collegiate Diversity (and against theme halls) (8 January 2005)

  The ‘theme hall’ fad runs counter to the goals of liberal education.

• The Collegiate System at the University of Durham (20 December 2004)

  Durham’s colleges are an international model worthy of emulation.

• Collegiate Ideals in the London Times Higher (20 August 2004)

  Bob O’Hara on the collegiate way in the London Times Higher Education Supplement.

• Puritan Wisdom on Community Life (5 July 2004)

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

• Harvard Residential College Proposals from Years Past (20 June 2004)

  Frank Bolles and Abbott Lawrence Lowell on the origin of the House System.

• A Collection of Published Residential College Histories (16 May 2004)

  A library of local histories with an international collegiate appeal.

• A Syllabus for a Course on Residential Colleges (20 January 2004)

  Bring your students and faculty together for a seminar on collegiate life.

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

  Residential colleges need graduate students, says Nicholas Stephanopoulos.

• The Gates Foundation Supports Decentralized Schools (19 September 2003)

  The residential college movement is one with the worldwide educational Zeitgeist.

• Collegiate Summer Reading (25 May 2003)

  A collection of residential college books to take to the beach this summer.

• Residential Colleges Offer the Best of Both Worlds (4 May 2003)

  Good advice from the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

• Dukedom Large Enough: Residential College Libraries (30 April 2003)

  A college without a library is hardly a college at all.

• 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: Counteract Age Segregation (15 October 2002)

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

• Bremen’s Blue Print: ›Colleges – ein neues altes Konzept‹ (21 August 2002)

  The collegiate way of living: an old idea for a new German university.

• 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.

• Residential Colleges Proposed for Rutgers University (5 August 2002)

  Professor William Dowling urges reform at Rutgers in a brilliant polemic.

• Collegiate History: Lowell and the Harvard Houses (1 August 2002)

  Henry Yeomans recounts the origins of the first American residential college system.

• “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?

• Historic Lessons: Creating a Residential College System (14 June 2002)

  Samuel Eliot Morison on Lowell, Harkness, and the origin of the Harvard house system.

• Collegiate Tip-of-the-Month: Embody Knowledge (19 April 2002)

  The best lessons are those that we have incorporated into our lives.

• The Collegiate Way, Old and New: The Yale Report of 1828 (7 April 2002)

  Can an influential document almost two centuries old enliven our thinking today?

• MIT Architecture Essay Proposes Residential Colleges (24 February 2002)

  Architect and MIT alumnus Jay Weber commends the collegiate way to his alma mater.

• Sorkin on Colleges for the University of Chicago (5 February 2002)

  Architect Michael Sorkin proposes a collegiate system for the University of Chicago.

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

  Stay your students with flagons, comfort them with apples.

• “How to Build a Residential College” Appears in Print (4 January 2002)

  A brief introduction is now available in SCUP’s Planning for Higher Education.

• Magisterial Profiles: Princeton and USC (14 December 2001)

  What’s it like to be the master of a residential college?

• “Residential Colleges Hold Key to Intellectual Life” (11 December 2001)

  Reynolds Price offers a strong endorsement of the residential college idea.

• “Stars, I have seen them fall, but when they drop & die” (3 December 2001)

  Of meteor showers and liberal education in residential colleges.

• Residential College Gifts for the Holidays (16 November 2001)

  Collegiate recommendations for books, movies, music, and more.

• 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.

• “Back to the Future” With Residential Colleges (1 November 2001)

  The Collegiate Way appears in The Irascible Professor.

• 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.’

• “Four Foundations for University Renewal” Available (17 August 2001)

  A new introduction to the Collegiate Way website is now online.

• “College Life and the Annual Cycle” is Available (8 July 2001)

  A detailed set of recommendations on residential college life are now available online.

• An Important New Book on Residential Colleges (6 June 2001)

  ‘A Collegiate Way of Living: Residential Colleges and a Yale Education.’

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

  Richard Light shows us how to improve undergraduate education.

• “Residential College Buildings and Grounds” is Online (6 March 2001)

  Detailed recommendations for residential college buildings and grounds are now online.

• Tapper and Palfreyman on Oxford College Governance (2 February 2001)

  Efficiency may be important in industry, but it isn’t necessarily an educational value.

• “Membership and Administrative Structure” Available (14 January 2001)

  Detailed recommendations for residential college administration are now online.

• “How to Build a Residential College” Available (18 December 2000)

  A major summary section of the Collegiate Way website is now online.

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

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

• “The Collegiate Landscape of the Future” Available (25 November 2000)

  An essay on residential colleges and the future of higher education is now online.