The Residential College proposal calls for lecture rooms and classrooms apart from present University facilities.
Literary Faculty Endorses Residential College
The possibility of a new and relatively small liberal arts college physically and academically integrated with the University has now been given important encouragement.
For many months various individuals and groups within the University community have devoted searching thought to an evolving proposal, which has now come to be known as a Residential College.
The concept has been advanced as a promising solution to a pair of major objectives: improvement of the education of students, and provision for handling possible growth.
Last month a major forward step in the implementation of such a new educational development was taken when the faculty of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts approved, by an approximate 2 to 1 majority of those voting, the latest L.S. and A. College faculty report on feasibility.
Many other actions need to be taken before a Residential College might come into existence on the Michigan Campus but the faculty endorsement was basic and opens the way to consideration of the plan at other University levels all the way up to the Board of Regents.
The faculty feasibility committee set forth a list of specifications for the proposed Residential College:
> Location: "No farther from the main campus than the North Campus, preferably closer."
> Size: "A maximum of approximately 1,000 students."
> Selection of students: "By election."
> Teaching staff: "To be members of regular departments of L.S. and A. with temporary, full, or part-time assignments in the Residential College."
> Administrative staff: "To be headed by a director who is also an associate dean of L.S. and A. The college administrators and staff are to be responsible to their superiors in L.S. and A."
> Curriculum: "To be developed from the curriculum of L.S. and A. Courses in the Residential College will be designed for students of this college only. A main object is experimentation, under the jurisdiction of the L.S. and A. Curriculum Committee. The college program, however, should be such that transfer to the L.S. and A. program at the beginning of almost any semester could be arranged without serious loss of credit. No plan for stratification, either horizontal or vertical, is proposed, and hence the college should serve students with many interests and differing degrees of ability. This suggests a fairly wide-ranging curriculum."
> Facilities: "The college buildings should contain lecture rooms, class rooms, staff offices, a library, possibly elementary laboratories, seminar-lounges, dormitories, and the usual supporting facilities such as dining rooms, coffee-bars, etc. However, members of the college will probably rely heavily on L.S. and A. library and laboratory facilities."
> Residential requirement: "All students enrolled in the college must reside in the college. It is expected that students electing to remain in the college should informally make a commitment to remain for the entire undergraduate program. However, it would be unwise to attempt to force any student to continue in the program against his will. Though no provision for a resident faculty is contemplated, the staff will be closely in touch with students, through counseling, teaching, and informal social activities in the college buildings."
In a discussion of potential financial problems of such a Residential College, the faculty report cited a University business office opinion that "the cost of constructing and maintaining the physical plant of the proposed Residential College is roughly independent of whether it is located on the main campus or as far away as the North Campus."
"Of course," the report continued, "the Residential College as envisaged would initially involve certain increased costs if the duplication of library facilities, and some laboratories, and the holding of classes not filled to capacity, prove necessary or desirable.
"The specifications purposely do not discuss the student-faculty ratio. The program as developed might well require a lower ratio, but conceivably it could be devised to allow a higher ratio. The goal of the Residential College is to provide an excellent educational facility, taking advantage of sound innovations in teaching and curricula." In assessing the costs of the physical plant, it is assumed that the self-liquidating features employed the construction of residence halls will be incorporated as fully as possible in the new venture.
"The committee report examined at some length possible alternatives to the Residential College proposal in the light of two major objectives, as follows:
> Educational improvement: "An obvious alternative to a Residential College is an increase in efforts to improve the curriculum, equipment, instructional methods, and faculty by using the same means employed in the past. The chief educational advantage to be expected in a Residential College derives from increased association among students and increased contact between students and faculty. There is some evidence that if the opportunities are exploited these benefits can be substantial. Consideration should also be given to improvement of the living conditions in dormitories over those currently found.
A second possible advantage lies in the potential for educational experimentation. This advantage is limited, because for somekinds of experimentation a large student body is more useful than a small one. It would be expected, however, in view of a directive for experimentation, that educational arrangements in the proposed Residential College could be more flexible than in L.S. and A., that the faculty would be disposed toward experimentation, and that the whole student-faculty milieu would support it.
"What has been said so far with respect to the first objective would not preclude locating the Residential College at some distance from Ann Arbor. The overwhelming objection is that the easy access to the resources of the University should not be denied to Michigan students. One of the salient advantages of placing a new small college physically and academically integrated with a large university is that the good features of both kinds of institutions can be utilized. The laboratory and library resources of the large university can be used by the students in the small college; the diversity of specialized courses that only a large university can offer would be available to the students who wanted them.
"Good faculty men and women would be attracted to the college by the prospect of membership in an already well established staff. They could thus benefit from contacts with outstanding colleagues in their fields and from the opportunity to pursue their research interests in an encouraging setting with adequate resources. A principal factor determining the success of a Residential College is the availability of dedicated and competent individuals who believe in the aims and goals established for a Residential College. Since it would be impossible to recruit such highly skilled persons in sufficient numbers to staff a Residential College organized outside the present L.S. and A. College, it is concluded that the proposed college be organized within the L.S. and A. College so that its teachers may be drawn from and hold appointments in regular L.S. and A. departments."
> Handling growth: "If the proposed Residential College is regarded primarily as a means of coping with the problem of increasing enrollment, other expedients must be considered. Expansion of the present College is certainly the most obvious of these, and probably the least expensive. Others include the establishment of branches either nearby or far away, splitting the College into upper and lower divisions (vertically), or into separate Humanities, Natural Science and Social Science Divisions (horizontally), and moving toward a College that is predominantly upper division, with lower division work relegated to junior colleges. These courses of action have not been studied in depth by the committee, and it is not realistic to suppose that any positive conclusion concerning them could be reached readily.
"The proposed Residential College on the other hand has been studied inconsiderable depth; and there are persons on the present faculty who are enthusiastic about participating in an opportunity for trying to improve our educational program through such an agency. It seems to the committee that the establishment of Residential Colleges of the kind described above could provide an exciting adventure in education and could at the very least handle a part of the anticipated increased enrollments, effectively."
The committee report also amplified the statements set forth in the specifications concerning curriculum:
"A new curriculum for the proposed Residential College is very difficult to plan in advance, since it should reflect the capabilities and needs of the students who enroll in the college. Accordingly, the curriculum of the Residential College should develop from the curriculum of L.S. and A. Students would normally take their courses in the Residential College, but would come to the main campus for courses not available there.
"The staff of the Residential College would then be encouraged to experiment freely, in curricular as well as in other matters, such as teaching methods, the improvement of faculty contacts, and the development of student activities. It would be a particular charge of the director of the Residential College to pursue such experimentation vigorously, but it should be noted that this experimentation would be carried out by a director and staff members responsible to their superiors in the L.S. and A. College, with curriculum changes developing in the usual fashion under the supervision of the College Curriculum Committee. In this way the development of the Residential College would make full use of the great body of highly developed skill in higher education, which exists in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
"As a final comment the committee would like to assert its opinion that the success of a Residential College does not depend as much on a list of specifications as on the character and ability of the individual faculty members who will use the college as a means toward better teaching. It is our undocumented belief that the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts possess many staff who will enthusiastically welcome this opportunity. If our belief proves to be wrong, the dream of a Residential College will become merely the reality of a new residence hall."
In view of all the considerations set forth in the report, the faculty group concluded, "the committee recommends the establishing of a Residential College of the sort specified in the present report, provided there will be no diversion of funds normally allocated to L.S. and A., and provided costs are not incommensurate with those associated with other forms of instruction in Literature, Science, and the Arts."
The Michigan Alumnus
March 1964, Page 182
