Talk:Residential college

Listing college names
User:Uris pulled out the names of the three Canadian residential colleges in the Residential college article. I (JDLH | Talk) am the one that put those names in there. I respectfully disagree with your change. You make a good point, that if there are thousands of residential colleges we can't list them all in this article. However, the thousands of colleges aren't being listed there (yet). It's a very short article. The preceding paragraph devotes more space to the Cornell and Princeton colleges than the Canadian paragraph does to the Canadian colleges.

The advantage of having college names in that article is that it establishes a link from Residential college to the individual colleges. (Of course, the individual college articles have links to Residential college.)

If at some point someone wants to make a list of the thousands of residential colleges in the U.S., then that would probably belong in a separate List of residential colleges article, and I agree the Canadian colleges should be also move to the separate list at that point. In the mean time, I think the existing wording is appropriate.

I'm going to revert Uris's change, but I'm happy to have a discussion here about which approach is better. JDLH | Talk 18:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Hello... this article isn't a listing of residential colleges... it doesn't even list the many residential colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. I started a seperate article List of residential colleges and listed the Canadian ones for you.  I'll gradually add more to the list... you can help! –Uris 21:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. We now have a list of colleges, and the refs to Canadian colleges stay there. I put back in this article a sentence about slow adoption in Canada. JDLH  | Talk 17:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

What is a "residential college" anyway?
What is a "residential college", anyway? The term clearly has a fuzzy definition. But as I look around, I get more and more uncertain whether a given institution belongs in the list of residential colleges or not.

For instance, the University of Toronto article claims it has a residential college system, originally based the system at the University of London. The University of Toronto has the following colleges:


 * Federated colleges
 * University of Trinity College (est. 1851, federated 1904)
 * University of St. Michael's College (est. 1852, affiliated with U of T 1881, full federation 1910)
 * Victoria University (est. 1836, federated 1892)


 * Constituent colleges
 * University College (est. 1853)
 * New College (est. 1962)
 * Innis College (est. 1964)
 * Woodsworth College (est. 1974)
 * Massey College is listed as an "affiliated unit" in the article, but we here at the residential colleges of the University of British Columbia think of it as the only 'real' Residential College in the lot.
 * The Toronto School of Theology is affiliated with the U of T. Is it a Residential College? It itself has eleven colleges. Do they all qualify as Residential Colleges too?
 * Emmanuel College, (United Church of Canada)
 * Wycliffe College, (Low Anglican)
 * St. Augustine's Seminary, (Roman Catholic archdiocesan)
 * Regis College, (Jesuit)
 * Knox College, (Presbyterian Church in Canada)
 * St. Michael's College Faculty of Theology, (Basilian)
 * Trinity College Faculty of Divinity, (Anglo-Catholic)
 * Institute for Christian Studies (affiliated institution)
 * Conrad Grebel University College (affiliated institution)
 * McMaster Divinity College (affiliated institution)
 * Waterloo Lutheran Seminary (affiliated institution)

Meanwhile, the University of London lists a bewildering array of "colleges and institutes". Should all of these be added to the list of residential colleges?
 * Recognised bodies
 * Birkbeck, University of London
 * Goldsmiths College
 * Heythrop College
 * Imperial College London, incorporating Imperial College at Wye
 * Institute of Cancer Research
 * Institute of Education
 * King's College London (KCL), incorporating the Institute of Psychiatry and The Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine
 * London Business School
 * London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
 * London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
 * Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) incorporating Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry
 * Royal Academy of Music
 * Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL)
 * Royal Veterinary College
 * School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), incorporating the London School of Jewish Studies
 * School of Pharmacy
 * University College London (UCL), incorporating the the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), the Slade School of Fine Art, the Bartlett School, the Royal Free and University College Medical School, the Eastman Dental Institute, the Institute of Child Health (Great Ormand St. Hospital), the Institute of Neurology, the Institute of Opthamology, the Institute of Laryngology and Otology and the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR).
 * St George's Hospital Medical School
 * Colleges no longer in existence: "Some colleges of the University of London have been amalgamated into larger colleges or their work transferred elsewhere. These include"
 * Bedford College - Inner Circle Regent's Park
 * Chelsea College of Science and Technology - Hortensia Road, Chelsea
 * Queen Elizabeth College - Campden Hill Road, Kensington
 * Westfield College - Kidderpore Avenue, Hampstead
 * Listed bodies
 * British Institute in Paris
 * Courtauld Institute of Art
 * School of Advanced Study comprising the following institutes:
 * Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
 * Institute of Classical Studies
 * Institute of Commonwealth Studies
 * Institute of English Studies (including the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies),
 * Institute of Germanic Studies
 * Institute of Historical Research
 * Institute of Latin American Studies
 * Institute of Romance Studies
 * Institute of United States Studies
 * The Warburg Institute
 * University Marine Biological Station, Millport

I have the feeling that if I were to add all of the "colleges" of the University of Toronto and University of London to the List of residential colleges, it would be incorrect and too broad. But I'm having a hard time articulating the rule for what belongs and what doesn't. Your thoughts? (--Jdlh | Talk 09:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC))

University of California, Santa Cruz and Rice University as models
There's a slow-motion edit war going on about the inclusion of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) as a model of Residentail College in the Various models of residential college section.
 * On 2005-12-15 07:03:31, User:Uris deleted UCSC from the sentence beginning "the classical models for the residential college are..."
 * On 2005-12-29 05:15:51 anonymous user 64.173.168.44 changed Rice University to University of California, Santa Cruz, effectively restoring UCSC and removing Rice.

I'm adding Rice University back in and leaving UCSC there for now. I'd appreciate a discussion here about what's the appropriate list.

Uris, can you elaborate on why you favour removing UCSC from the list of models for residential college? Your edit comment says, "Many Santa Cruz students don't even live on campus, much less in a residential college". This may be true, but I'm not persuaded that it stops UCSC from being a model for residential colleges in the US. I could argue that UCSC does have residential colleges for whatever fraction of its student body, and perhaps those colleges are in fact models for the US. (I don't actually know UCSC well enough to argue this, I'm just trying to articulate the issue.)

64.173.168.44, what reason do you have for restoring UCSC to the list in the face of Uris's removal? And why remove Rice University from the list at the same time?

Thanks, all. --Jdlh | Talk 22:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Rice University has been removed again. The consensus of this discussion seems to be that both Rice and UCSC should be included, so I'm adding Rice back in. For purposes of full disclosure, I'm a student at Rice.

--128.42.159.11 23:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Interesting. On 2006-02-09 21:20:54 and two previous edits, [User:129.170.246.96] edited the list of "classical models" sentence to remove UCSC, Yale, and Cal Tech from the list of models, and add UC San Diego and Harvard. I'd like more information before I agree with this edit.  I observe that Harvard is absent from the List of residential colleges, while UC San Diego is present. The real issue is which universities are "classical models", and this editor hasn't given any references to justify this change.  I'm going to revert to the version of 2006-02-08 13:48:03 by Jdlh. This reverses the edits by anonymous editor 129.170.246.96, and makes the changes by 128.42.159.11 moot. (Rice University remains in the list.)


 * For the next person who'd like to improve this section, please put references in the text to justify the claims about which university is a model. I'm willing to believe that the current opening section isn't perfect, and it certainly doesn't have references itself, but I'm not comfortable with going from unsupported assertion to different unsupported assertion.  We can do better.  --Jdlh  | Talk 06:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Three residential colleges in Canada
On 2006-02-06 20:26:19, User:Darkcore deleted the phrase, "However, some say that there are only three "residential" colleges in Candada as of 2005 (Green and St. John's Colleges at the University of British Columbia, and Massey College at Toronto)." I'm presently at Green College, UBC, and I know this "only three residential colleges in Canada" meme is significant here. I'm willing to discuss weaknesses in how this is presented, but I'm uncomfortable deleting the claim entirely with no rationale or no alternative text. I've reverted that edit. Discussion welcomed. --Jdlh | Talk 21:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't really understand where you're getting this "only three residential colleges in Canada" statement from. Apart from the fact that it's not cited, it's simply untrue, at least by my definition of a residential college. Perhaps you could explain what you mean. Darkcore 06:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Darkcore, thanks for responding. The heads of both Green College, UBC and St. John's College, UBC, have made the comment that there are only "three residential colleges in Canada" (the third is Massey College). I agree, the article would be stronger if I could find a written citation for that claim. The claim interests me. It has a lot to do with what the definition of "residential college" is, and in what sense the colleges of U of Toronto are different from Massey, Green, and St. John's. It might have to do with the fact that the other U of Toronto colleges are aligned with religious denominations, or their focus on undergraduate students. So the claim of "three residential colleges" is really made, I think the article should reflect it, and I think it would be a good service for the article to explain it. --Jdlh | Talk 18:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Why would it matter if the college was aligned with a religious denomination (although Innis, New, Woodsworth, and University Colleges are not affiliated with any religious group, nor have they ever in their history) or if the focus was on undergraduates (my understanding of Green College is that it is just for graduate students, and I know that Massey College is for graduate students only). I have never heard this comment before (I did a Google search and found nothing) and considering you have no justification for the statement (apart from the fact that the heads of these UBC colleges said so), it sounds like POV to me. Darkcore 04:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm following this discussion with interest. I run the principal website devoted to residential colleges around the world (collegiateway.org). It's certainly true that there isn't a fixed definition of "residential college," but it can't be correct to say that there are only three residential colleges in Canadian universities; perhaps "three graduate colleges" was meant? Two examples that I have visited myself: the University of Waterloo has four flourishing colleges, and Trent University was established on a collegiate basis in the 1960s and has long been called "Oxbridge on the Otonabee" for that reason. (The Trent colleges have been weakened in recent years by an ignorant university administration, but they are very much present.) You can see my own listing of Canadian residential colleges at: http://collegiateway.org/colleges RJO 22:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, RJO. Perhaps we could reword the phrase as such: "There are only three residential colleges for graduate students in Canada &mdash; Green and St. John's Colleges at the University of British Columbia, and Massey College at the University of Toronto." This keeps the sentence relatively intact, but the new phrasing is much more clear. Darkcore 22:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Darkcore's proposal, and I've made this edit. Thanks everyone for the discussion. P.S. in all this, no-one pointed out that "Canada" was misspelled in the old wording, heh. --Jdlh  | Talk 06:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Experiences with the residential college model
On 2006-03-22, an anonymous edtior added Murray State University to the list of models of residential college. That didn't sound right, because the useful section on "residential colleges" in the Murray State article says they were established only in 1996, and in emulation of the Oxbridge system. However, it also says that Murray State is the first public university (in the US?) with a successful campus-wide residential college system. Lots of qualifiers there, but still, it seems like that's a story to tell in the "residential college" article.

It seems to me that the present article needs a place to tell the stories of how the residential college model plays out at various universities. Right now, the "list of models" section is the only place. I added a new section, Experiences with the residential college model, to hold such stories. I started it off with the "Three Graduate Colleges in Canada", the MIT "rethinking residences", and the Murray State stories. My hope is that this section doesn't turn into a laundry list of every experience at every institution (we have List of residential colleges as a laundry last), but it does give editors a place to put content without bending the "list of models" section to do it. Have fun with it. --Jdlh | Talk 20:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The addition appears to be a questionable source as source on themselves. Other Universities such as UCSC and UCSD may have had such colleges first, and in fact without finding the research necessary, Wikipedia's articles on the universities I listed leads me to believe my assumption is correct. As such the Murray State quote is probably inappropriate and should not be in the article.--75.4.2.4 (talk) 07:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed
Clarification is needed with reference to American usage and practice - especially where the article seems to imply that the "colleges" at American universities are their residential systems. (This is incorrect - at most American universities the term "college" refers to the highest level of academic division - e.g. Graduate college, college of Liberal Arts and Sciences, etc - and the residential system is usually referred to as "residence halls/residence system" or "dorms/dormatory system".) Additionally, clarification on how many and which prominent American universities use this "residential college" system would be useful - for instance, I am a fourth-year university student in the United States and was unaware until reading this article that this system (which I'm presuming is similar to the British system?) was used anywhere in the U.S.  --Tim4christ17 talk 13:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a lot that could stand to be improved in how this article does its work. I haven't made it a priority to do the revision myself, but I encourage you to do some reading, then Be bold and make some improvements yourself.  I must confess, I don't see what you mean about the article 'seem[ing] to imply that the "colleges" at American universities are their residential systems'.  As I read it, the article says "residential college" most of the time, and where it says just "college" it seems clear that it's an abbreviation. But it would help to add a paragraph on the other uses of the term "college" in the university context. There's source material in the College and University college articles. If you want to add a section on which American universities use the residential college system, check out List of residential colleges for some source material. I'm looking forward to your contributions! --Jdlh  | Talk 17:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Notre Dame
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lmeister (talk • contribs) 14:17, August 6, 2008 [section title created, but no content.] I noticed this section header so I didn't have to create anything, but I though I would ask why Notre Dame is not mentioned? Their reputation in the Midwest is for having an excellent residential system that is often compared to Hogwarts and boasts over 80% of the student body living on campus. Does it not meet some criteria for being a "residential college"?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.154.235.101 (talk) 16:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Residential college. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100717040432/http://www.murraystate.edu:80/CampusLife/ResidentialColleges.aspx to http://www.murraystate.edu/CampusLife/ResidentialColleges.aspx

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 01:03, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Residential college. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061004060610/http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/About/l-purpose.htm to http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/About/l-purpose.htm
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://web.mit.edu/residence/systemdesign/cambridge1.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://education.families.com/residential-colleges-2043-2047-eoed

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 07:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

India subsection
The subsection on India mentions two residential universities and makes no mention of residential colleges. One is unreferenced while the other has two references, which again make no mention of residential colleges at this university. had stated that "The residential university BHU is a collegiate university which has hostels per colleges" but this is not currently supported by reliable references (the existence of a Wikipedia template is not a reliable reference). There does not seem to be any evidence on the university's website or referenced from its Wikipedia article that the hostels are colleges rather than halls of residence. I have therefore placed an "off topic" tag on this section. If this section cannot be brought on topic with (preferably independent) references allowing a discussion of residential colleges in Indian universities, it should be deleted. Robminchin (talk) 07:07, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Please see:
 * 
 * College wise list of hostels for male students
 * College wise list of hostels for female students User4edits (talk) 08:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for joining the discussion. The issue is that the newspaper article you link seems to be saying these are centrally-managed halls of residence (or dormitories in US English) – there's nothing there that says the hostels are residential colleges. As it says here on this page, 'The primary difference between a residential college and a dormitory is often considered to be that while a student lives in a dormitory for a year, they are a member of a college for their entire student life, even when not living in the dormitories associated with that college: "Residential colleges are collegia in the original sense: societies, not buildings, and their members may reside anywhere".' I don't get that sense of being a society from the articles you have linked about the BHU Hostels or my own searching for information on them. There doesn't seem to be any concept of the students becoming members of their hostel in any sense greater than being residents.
 * Most British universities and many US universities are residential and have halls of residence/dormitories, but only a few have residential colleges. Ideally, we would want an authoritative third party saying that the hostels are residential colleges rather than dormitories, but this often isn't possible except for the more famous and longer established collegiate systems. However, a clear statement from the university that the hostels are following a residential college model rather than the ordinary dormitory model would be expected if this is what they are doing – if they're going to go to that expense, they're almost certainly going to use it as a recruiting tool – and I'm not seeing anything like that regarding the BHU hostels. Robminchin (talk) 16:47, 12 July 2022 (UTC)