RC History and Background
How the RC evolved from an academic upstart to a sustained experiment in undergraduate education.
In the university world, programs like the RC should not be taken for granted. The RC was developed as a response to a changing academic and political climate of the late 1960s. Not only were political and ideological conflicts at their most intense, but student enrollments reached an all-time high; lecture halls were crammed as social debates and dissent reached a peak. Students challenged rules, demanded more autonomy, and sought a larger voice in the University community.
Founding RC Director, Dean James Robertson
A group of LSA faculty members launched the RC in 1967 with the aim of creating an intimate learning community where the boundaries between students and teachers were intentionally blurred, where students were given substantial control over their educational agendas, and where a cross-disciplinary curriculum in the liberal arts could be developed. The college was originally supposed to be housed in a new building on North Campus, but at first it had to be retro-fitted into a “temporary” residence in East Quad on central campus. It opened its doors in September of ’67, with faculty and administrative offices mingled in with bedrooms and dorm hallways—truly, a Residential College.
The RC was about more than the need for smaller classes—it was a departure in pedagogy and curriculum. The RC had no grades of any kind until 2001, providing its students with formal written evaluations instead. The RC curriculum was strongly interdisciplinary in nature and its requirements were shaped early on by the direct involvement of RC students. Indeed, the growth of the RC has been always characterized by a give-and-take of mutual respect between students and faculty. Although students make fewer direct decisions about the RC curriculum than they did in its infancy, RC students still participate actively in shaping the RC’s overall growth and development.
Founding RC Faculty and Staff
The character of the RC has changed—but always with the times. The basic principles have not: close interaction between students and faculty, education as a collaborative enterprise based on mutual respect, and a curricular emphasis on language and communications skills, on engagement with the creative arts, and on learning that runs across disciplinary lines and puts students in the world.
In short, the RC, as a unit committed to undergraduate teaching and interdisciplinary scholarship, is constantly changing, as pedagogical challenges evolve and experiments in learning are explored; yet it remains fundamentally the same: a liberal arts learning community that revolves around a close nexus of students and faculty.