6. Constructing a Collegiate Compass

Home , Collegiate university, Residential college

MICHAEL EAMON

6. CONSTRUCTING A COLLEGIATE COMPASS

Navigating Change in the Culturally-Constructed Collegiate University

Fifty years ago the founders of Canada’s Trent University consciously chose to follow ‘the collegiate way’ as they planned a new institution of higher education. It was hoped that this model—part Oxbridge, part Durham in tradition—would bolster a fledgling university without a storied past of its own. The plan for Trent was ambitious. Over a dozen colleges were envisaged both downtown and on a 1400-acre parcel of land on the outskirts of the city. Indeed, establishing a fully- formed collegiate university was a bold decision in 1960s North America; let alone in Peterborough, a small, industrial city of 55,000 situated in rural Ontario.1 All collegiate institutions, and particular those that exist outside of the United Kingdom, are cultural constructions, blending a collegiate template with local educational traditions and expectations. Trent University has also been culturally constructed, or more accurately, is continually under construction as Canadian society and the landscape of higher education changes. Today, Trent University, like so many collegiate institutions, is at a crossroads. With each new generation of students there is a constant pressure to adapt and change the traditional aspects of college life. Pressure for change also comes from above where new practices in higher education—formed in the crucible of North American campus universities— continue to be telegraphed by university administrators onto collegiate structures often without regard for underlying differences, or unique collegiate functions. Yet, at what point does a collegiate university, transformed by both internal and external forces, lose its claim to collegiate status? Are college traditions once transformed, irrevocably lost? What happens when the proverbial honeymoon of a new university is over? While change is inevitable, it can be measured, balancing both traditional practice and modern realities. It is essential that institutional transformations be based on core pedagogical principles reflecting the central tenets of collegiality, while understanding and acknowledging the distinct cultural influences in which each collegiate university uniquely exists. Indeed, what we do as collegiate universities, what services we offer, or traditions we celebrate are not as important as why we do them. In the ever-changing, culturally-constructed environment of higher education, our guide must be a core set of values, an underlying collegiate ethos or, more accurately, a collegiate compass.

FRAMING THE COLLEGIATE COMPASS

Before exploring my own my own thoughts on the nature of a collegiate compass, it is important to observe what prominent scholars have already written in regard to the inherent nature of the collegiate university. Considering the reams of scholarship that has been published dealing with higher education, it is interesting to note how comparatively little has been published on the nature and value of a collegiate education, particularly in the Canadian context. Indeed, a definitive look at collegiate education across the globe needs to be written and perhaps the Collegiate Way conference can act as a first step in this project. Nonetheless, from the extant literature, there are some key commentators who have been quite explicit about what should be at the core of any collegiate university, or residential college system. In particular, professors Mark Ryan, Robert O’Hara and Donald Markwell have recently outlined the core characteristics of the collegiate way. Robert J. O’Hara, scientist and long-time residential college administrator, has written widely on the nature of the residential college. Most recently, he is best known for his Collegiate Way website that offers one of the most comprehensive resources on the residential college system.2 In writing on the foundations of the collegiate model, he observes that there are four core elements, that is to say, Decentralisation; Faculty Leadership; Stable Environment; and Ethnic and Academic Diversity (O’Hara, 2006, 2011). Above all O’Hara illustrates that a holistic nature is the key to success for residential colleges. To build a scholarly community, he emphasises the reciprocity required between the intellectual and the physical. For example, stable, safe spaces such as college common rooms, dining halls and libraries are all essential to fostering cogent thought. Yet space is not enough, and O’Hara highlights the importance of faculty involvement and interdisciplinarity of the residential college. O’Hara notes that Mark Ryan, former Dean of Jonathan Edwards College and professor of American Studies at Yale University, has written ‘the best single volume about residential college life.’3 Indeed, Ryan’s A Collegiate Way of Living is a touchstone for collegiate values and explores some of the internal tensions that residential colleges face within the modern university. Yale’s collegiate system was a twentieth-century invention allowing the university to grow while maintaining an intimate sense of scale. While there are many important characteristics to residential college, Ryan eloquently observes that the one of the most fundamental benefits is the manner in which students of a college educate one another (Ryan, 2001). If general goals are to be sought from the collegiate way, Ryan suggests six such goals that is to say: ethics, citizenship, community, instruction, co-curricular programming, and peer learning (Ryan, 2001, p. 61). Some of the key tensions Ryan observes include the rise of university departments and the corresponding erosion of the interdisciplinary role that the college traditionally played (Ryan, 2001, pp. 104–107). A decrease in the importance of teaching and service in scholarly promotion has also been particularly devastating, in Ryan’s estimation, resulting