When Houses Are More Than Homes Residential colleges old and new proser L i r ,44 4 The average dormitory denizen does not respond to a 4 a.m. fire drill on a chill September morning by bursting into folk song, as some residents of Carmichael Hall at the University of North Carolina did last fall. In Spanish. Senior Bob White strummed his guitar during the obligatory wait outside (it was a false alarm), and his floormates chimed in with the lyrics. But then, Carmichael Hall is no ordinary place. A wing on the second floor is now reserved for Spanish and French majors, along with their tutor, as part of a Chapel Hill experiment in building "mini-residen- tial colleges." German and health-sciences majors live and learn together in other sections of Carmichael, and another area is set aside for students from diverse ethnic backgrounds, almost like a small United Nations. The notion of a community of scholars that lives and studies together is as old as ancient Greece, and it has long thrived in the independent colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. In the Oxbridge model, the col- leges are independent and self-governing; they control their own endowment and command fierce loyalty from students and dons. This leaves to the university the func- tions of giving courses of lectures and ex- aminations for the degrees, which only the university awards. Residential colleges in the United States are not similarly auton- omous, but the system in different forms flourishes at universities from the oldest, such as Harvard and Yale, to the newest, such as the University of Cali- fornia, Santa Cruz; from such large state universities as the University of Michigan, to small liberal-arts colleges, such as Ohio's College of Wooster. Institutions are trying all kinds of variations of resi- dential colleges-nearly self- contained colleges at Santa Cruz, dormitory floors at Chap- el Hill. One goal is to counteract the perceived anonymity of Dorm mas mass, high-tech student life. Another is simply to improve learning. This undefined quality allows many insti- tutions to claim to offer versions of the residential college, but most of them func- tion chiefly as housing and housekeeping mechanisms of the institution. They lack the critical element: the faculty masters or tutors or fellows who live with the students in what can be considered a never-ending' educational process. Evening songfests: In the last three years the University of Miami has moved 60 per- cent of the 3,900 students who live on cam- pus to residential colleges. Ross Murfin, a professor of English who last spring com- pleted his official three-year term as a fac- ulty master, lived with 400 students in Hecht Residential College. He and his wife, Pamela, frequently invited their student neighbors to evening seminars with visit- ing experts in all manner of subjects or for songfests around their ebony grand piano. CHASCANCELLARE er: Miami's Biggers and family Associate Master Thompson Biggers arid his wife were similarly hospitable, hosting a Spanish dinner for students, who cooked paella, fried yucca and other ethnic dishes. Murfin believes the goals of the program should be relatively modest: "If your goal is to resurrect the golden age," says Murfin, "with famous scholars and think- ers with hundreds of students sitting at their feet every week, you're going to be disappointed." Still, the concept is considered so success- ful at Northwestern that the university has turned 10 of its 26 housing units into residential colleges since 1970. They vary in size from 37 to 300 students. All are coed, except for the women's studies house, and most have an academic theme. The 107 students in the communications residential college, for instance, live in suites of six or seven rooms that surround a common living area. The house has seven 1 ..,a' ALLEN DEAN STEELE STEVE LEONARD No ordinary places: Vocalizing in Spanish at North Carolina, editing tape in Northwestern's communications hall 18 NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS OCTOBER 1987