User:Philtweir/WikiProject Residential Colleges

Per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals, ideas for a separate WikiProject for academic communities or colleges (in the non-US sense).

Following the discussion (at the bottom), we're considering moving from the ambiguous 'Residential Colleges' to 'Academic Communities': see this user-page draft for more information.

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National nomenclature

A residential college is here considered as distinct from a hall of residence and, more so, a dorm. This is in contrast to common US usage, where such an institution would normally be supplementary, university-provided accommodation or privately-owned apartment blocks rented solely to students. The alternative concept, particularly in Commonwealth countries, is based on the British model. However, the US dorm model does appear in the UK and elsewhere, but alongside the traditional Oxbridge-style format.

So, what's the difference? The linked articles provide some more information but, in summary, a residential college is based on the concept of membership, rather than accommodation. That is, it is a non-degree granting institution, affiliated to a university, that, for practical reasons, provides accommodation for members as well as a range of other facilities, such as dining rights, student societies, supplementary tuition, academic and welfare support, links members and alumni, and can be considered, in some sense, to have a society independent of the linked university. Often they share as much in common with US fraternities and sororities, (which are very uncommon in, for example, the UK) as they do with US dorms. Sometimes, as with many Cambridge postgraduates, you may be a member of a college without receiving any accommodation.

Since many dorms do include a number of these elements but would still not necessarily meet WP:NOTA, this can be considered a scale, with many of the traditional Oxbridge colleges at one end, where acceptance to the university, scholarships, graduation, (for certain subjects and colleges) the majority of teaching and a significant percentage of government funding is through the college; and an accommodation-only dorm at the other. Since it is impossible to pick a clear distinction other than WP:NOTA, this proposal is to include all 'notable' residential colleges under a WikiProject where articles can be assessed on relative quality and importance inside the college context.

An example of an article pertaining to a college at one end of the scale might be the St John's College, Cambridge article.

Rationale

Why would we want another WikiProject on top of Universities, just for RC?: firstly, the question of the notability and the nature of dorms, colleges and halls of residence has come up a number of times and having a crossroads for people with interest evidently would be helpful. Additionally, since there are a vast number of pages which fit into this topic here or there, with little cohesion between countries or affiliated universities, it would be helpful to have them linked through a common ground. Often, only a few people interested in the university article will be interested in the individual college ones and some of the stub-articles can be vandalised (frequent on rival college articles!) and left uncorrected for a couple of weeks at a time, when another RC enthusiast could pop by and correct in two minutes (as, for instance, I did with Mannix College (Monash University), somewhere I'd formally never heard about)! Finally, since this is a less familiar concept in some countries, it may be helpful to have somewhere for editors who haven't come across residential colleges in this sense, to comment on and contrast relevant articles.

Why not just propose a Task Force?: since the articles targeted by this project would have a strong cohesive formatting theme, distinct from that of universities, and a sizeable number of articles, it seems sensible to follow the WP:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities route than that of the Student Affairs task force. Further, comparing and rating RC articles independently might make sense, given the number and variety.

Examples

Some already-existing pages that may be worthwhile to include in a WikiProject Residential Colleges

• Categories: Category:Residential colleges of the University of Sydney, Category:Residential Colleges of Australian Universities
• Colleges-of articles: Colleges of the University of Oxford, Colleges of the University of Durham
• College articles: Wentworth College, Jesus College, Cambridge, Knox College, Otago (discl: personal contributions to the latter article :p, but an example of semi-detailed non-UK college article)
• Templates: Template:Infobox University of Queensland colleges, Template:Infobox Cambridge college
• Related: Residential college, Common room (university), Traditions of the University of Trinity College

Support would, of course, be needed from those most involved in maintaining college-related articles.

Discussion

I would support either a WikiProject or a task force, although you'll need to make it abundantly clear that these are only residential colleges based on the Oxbridge model, rather than the American usage. Otherwise, this project/taskforce will be inundated by non-notable articles about residence halls. Perhaps naming the project "WikiProject Independent residential colleges" or "WikiProject Residential colleges (Oxbridge model)" would be in order. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep, thank you for the input! That sounds sensible, particularly, not having a great deal of experience with the American model, I wouldn't be too sure how to deal with those, so it would be up to others to deal with the inevitable deluge. The name suggestion seems the most effective - 'Oxbridge model' is probably the more open-ended option (as, for example, some such colleges are University-owned or governed). By the way, I should disclose that I have lived at two of these colleges and indeed still am at the second. Since this term is used in academic literature (e.g. Understanding Collegiality: The Changing Oxbridge Model ) I can't see anybody objecting...--Philtweir (talk) 12:43, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I've posted a proposal Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Residential Colleges (Oxbridge model) and will see if I can gather some more interest. Please make any necessary improvements! --Philtweir (talk) 12:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I suspect that Oxbridge model may be misinterpreted (in UK and elsewhere) and also have come across a number of closely comparable institutions in non-English-speaking countries that have developed independently of Oxford and Cambridge. However, in a flash of inspiration, thought of Academic Communities, which suggests living, studying and academic staff, but in closer quarters than anything that would normally be spoken of as a university (which would naturally get redirected to Universities). It is also a bit too narrow to attract boarding schools, or anything else below tertiary level, and is sufficiently uncommon to encourage editors checking the (explanatory) definition before including an article. That might solve the US-Commonwealth conundrum too. While it may confuse those who consider a university faculty to be an 'academic community' or a group of undergraduates in the same class, these should be few enough that a well written introduction should avoid too much work being generated through reassigning articles, in contrast to a storm of dorms! --Philtweir (talk) 06:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I've drawn up something, under that working title, to make the idea clearer: User:Philtweir/Academic Communities. Also, I've copied the discussion to that page, so that it that page could supersede this if desired. --Philtweir (talk) 02:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

If no objections, I'll go ahead and move the proposal to Academic Communities and circulate notices on a couple of collegiate university WikiProjects --Philtweir (talk) 01:53, 1 July 2010 (UTC)