URI RA TRAINING 2000

Part I

1. Why should we bother ourselves with historical questions regarding residential education?
   
   
Why should we waste our time with the past, when we have to deal with the pressing issues of today?


• to recognize the predecessors.
• to learn from their experience.
• to understand better what we are doing.
  
  
2. When did it start? And why?

In the Middle Ages (more precisely in the 13th century). The purpose was to house thousands of students flocking to expanding universities. For instance almost 20,000 students were enrolled at the University in Paris whose total population of the time was only a half of that number.

3. How was the problem initially solved?
   
   Students camped in the fields (tents) or burrowed themselves into the sides of the surrounding hills. In time they moved to live individually with schoolmasters or towns people.
   Much later they started to rent special big houses that became known under various names: socii (Italy), pedagogies (France), Bursen (Germany) and halls (England).
   Thus we owe current name "halls" to English medieval student housing (notably in Oxford).
   
   
4. Why do we prefer the designation residence "halls" to the more common appelative "dorms"?
   
   The term "hall" does not overstate the boarding function, which is the most salient feature of a "dormitory" (the word "dorm" is derived from the Latin dormire = to sleep; dormitories are consequently places where people first and foremost sleep).
   
   
5. Halls were originally governed by students themselves. Why did then their houses come in the 15^th century under the control of university authorities?

They were source of constant problems.
Instead of having totally separated bodies universities established collegiate system of organization.
This system flourished from the 14^th through the 18^th centuries when it started to loose ground, ate least in continental Europe.

6. Why did the collegiate system begin to decline in the 19^th century Europe?

In protestant Germany collegiate housing was perceived as a secular version of monkish (coenobite) life. In catholic France, the state took over universities without providing housing facilities.


University Hall at the Brown University Campus 1771

Part II

7. How and when did it start in the USA?

It started with the founding of 9 colonial colleges - today’s Ivy League universities (Harvard, 1636; College of Rhode Island, 1764).
From the very beginning, they all had college housing.

8. Why?

• they were all organized upon English models.
• their students were much younger than today (13 – 14 year old).
• many students came from distant villages.

9. What was the main difference between new American colleges and their English models?

• In America the focus was apparently on discipline rather than intellectual atmosphere.
• There were latent and open conflicts between students and the faculty.

10. Why did the very idea of residence halls become suspect in the 19^th century?

• Fights, duels and even murders were common in halls.
  Faculty and staff members were scared to death at the thought of being asked to go into a college dormitory.
• Halls were viewed by the public as places where one learns only bad manners.

11. What were the consequences of that state of affairs?

12. What was the new philosophy behind the 19^th century condemnations of "dormitory life"?

• There was no educational reason for boarding students on university premises.
• Personal growth of students lied outside the responsibility of the university.
• Research and instruction were sole objectives of academic institutions.
• German influence widened in the States and German universities have already given up the collegiate system.

13. What were the implications of the Land Grant College Act from 1862?

• It assured prominence of secular education in the USA.
• 69 state colleges were established across the country (URI was founded in 1892 as the School of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts).
• Loosening church control over students decreased violence on campuses.
• The interest in student housing was rekindled (started here in New England).





The Original Buildings on the Kingston Campus (ca. 1895)




Part III

14. What were the first dorms on our campus?

College Hall (Davis Hall) and Boarding Hall (South Hall) both built in 1890 (look at the maps from 1936 and 1955).

They were granite structures in Georgian colonial style. Functionally, they were real collegiate halls containing boarding rooms, classrooms, a library, a chapel, two workshops…

15. What was the first women’s dormitory on our campus?
    
    Watson house was used for that purpose since 1895; when East Hall was finished in 1909, male students moved there leaving Davis Hall as the first women’s dorm.

16. Which was the last only women dorm?
    
    Ask older (oops: more experienced) hall directors!

• College education prepares not only for professional careers but for public and political life as well.
• Future citizens learn not only in the classroom but also in their halls (the strongest lines of social influence are always horizontal).
• It is better to use productively the latent potential of housing than to ignore it.

19. What are the main reasons for the revival of residence halls in the early 1900s?

• insufficient supply of rooms and high prices of alternative accommodation.
• specific needs of student population (furniture, conditions).
• social organizations and ties one cannot find "down the line".
• learning opportunities for social skills.
• college spirit.
• leveled disparity between rich and poor students.
• tensions with fraternities (they dominated housing at URI until the fifties).
• influence of women’s colleges which by rule provided boarding.

20. How and why women’s colleges gave an impetus to the revival?

By showing a way how to establish full control over students:
curfews, preceptresses, social graces.

21. What was the overall situation at land grant universities in the 20s and 30s?
    
    Far from being satisfactory. Housing facilities could accommodate only a portion of all enrolled students. URI had only one men’s dorm (East Hall) and two women’s dorms: Davis Hall and Roosevelt Hall (built in 1936).
    These dorms provided little more than shelter and varying degrees of social interaction.
    The guiding philosophy was that they stand in loco parentis concerning the physical and moral welfare of students. But this was understood more as a license to impose restrictions than to foster real student development.

• curfews were at 10:30pm, all light out at 11:15pm.
• daily inspections of the rooms were common.
• students were asked to sign out whenever they leave the campus stating destination and expected time of return.
• visitations were limited (women only if accompanied by chaperones).
• dressing code (ties, skirts).

22. Why the years between 1930 and 1940 were not good for residential education?

After the Depression - Cooperative housing facilities offered low cost housing with a total disregard for educational needs.


Move-in in the sixties




Part IV

23. What happened during World War II and in the fifties?

24. When the national association of housing officers (ACUHO) was formed?

In 1951.

25. What was the URI response to the monumental postwar surge of enrollment?

To build much bigger halls than those erected around the Quad.
But much more modest in their structure. Nothing with granite, pseudo-gothic or vaulted windows.
New philosophy was entirely functionalist; the leading principle was form follows purpose.
URI started to build corridor style brick (concrete) boxes.
The old core of housing halls was left and a new was designed along Butterfield Road. The Transversal.
Bressler was first put on line in 1949, Butterfield in 1950.
Hutschinson, Peck, Adams in 1958.
Browning, Tucker, Merrow in 1961.

26. When did URI see the largest construction activity in its history?

From 1964 to 1967.
In a single year (1967) five halls were completed: Aldrich, Burnside, Coddington, Dorr, Ellery, and Hopkins.
All follow a polygonal pattern; have clustered rooms (four room suites).
Finally, two-room suite styled halls:
Heathman 1969; Feyerweather-Gorham 1970

27. When the Department of Housing and Residential Life was founded under its current name?

In 1974.

28. What were the organizational changes in the 60s and the 70s?

Housemothers were replaced first by head residents and resident managers.
Then hall directors resumed both roles and became professional managers of the halls.
Many restrictions were lifted (visitations, curfews, coed living).
RAs started to be regarded as educational agents and role models, counselors and advisers.

29. Which hall was the first coed dorm on our campus?

Heathman Hall in 1973 (the initiative came from Heathman Hall residents a year earlier).

30. What were the consequences of this change?

The main objective of housing became to promote communities conducive to learning, personal growth and supportive of diversity.
Residence halls started to be more popular with students.
After a decade of constant retention decline we have been having almost full occupancy for last several years.

31. What are the new challenges for residential education in the 21^st century? (Blimling)

1. Multiculturalism.
2. Student mental health problems.
3. Campus violence.
4. Changing student attitudes.
5. Accountability.
6. Residence hall facilities.
   (The last hall on Kingston campus was built 30 years ago with housing as its sole objective. Study rooms were not priority; computer labs did not exist at all. The design was not disability friendly. And so on and so forth.)

32. How do we respond to inherent design problems in the old dorms?
    
    Huge renovation project. Makings something old new again. New Master plan. Freshmen village. Barlow, Weldin, Bressler, Butterfiled, Adams, Browning. Completed in 2003.
    
    

The Banner in Roger Williams Commons