Residential College

A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall university. The term residential college is also used to describe a variety of other patterns, ranging from a dormitory with some academic programming, to continuing education programs for adults lasting a few days. In some parts of the world it simply refers to any organized on-campus housing, an example being University of Malaya.

A prominent model for residential colleges is the colleges of the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, which are legally independent of the universities and are both residential and teaching institutions. This model was modified at Durham University, also in the UK, in the 19th century, which adapted the Oxbridge model to create non-teaching colleges that were legally part of the University. With the arrival of residential colleges in the United States the model diversified further. While the Durham adaptation of colleges being owned by the university rather than being independent corporations is generally followed, some universities (e.g. Yale University) follow Oxford and Cambridge in having teaching in the residential colleges while others (e.g. Harvard University) follow Durham in keeping teaching centralised. There is also a split between fully collegiate universities (e.g. the University of Notre Dame, where all freshmen are put in a residential college) and those (e.g. Northwestern University) where not all students are members of colleges. Another variant at some US universities is residential colleges that do not cover all years at the institute, e.g. Princeton University's system of paired four-year and two-year residential colleges, or Cornell University's West Campus House System, which only takes sophomores and above, with most upperclassmen either living off campus or in dorms unaffiliated with the residential colleges. Another point of variance is whether colleges are multi-disciplinary (as at Oxford and Cambridge) or focused on certain subject areas. An example of the latter is Fordham University, which has dedicated residential colleges (Integrated Learning Communities) for upperclassmen for various themes including global business and science, as well as separate freshman residential colleges, including one for students considering pre-med or science majors.

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