Research On The Residential College System Of British And American Universities

The residential college system is a kind of model to manage the university students'residential life. Each student belongs to a residential college in the university which hasresidential colleges. The residential college is committed to making sound atmosphere and toprovide sufficient facilities for the students'development in addition to their study ofprofessional courses.The first residential college was built in Paris in Middle Ages, then this system wasdeveloped well in Cambridge University and Oxford University. Harvard University and YaleUniversity also built perfect residential college system in 1930s.The members of residentialcollege are varied. It not only includes administrators but also has tutors and students. Thestudents who come from different professions and different grades are the leading role of theresidential college certainly. Everyone plays an important role in the residential college, and atthe same time they keep close touch with others. The variety of members constitutes a bigfamily.In a university, the residential college and the teaching college commit to different role. Asthe teaching college , it is mainly responsible for the students'professional study and research.As the residential college, it is in charge of the students'extracurricular life to promote thestudents'development. Because education could occur at all times and places , students couldlearn a lot in daily life in residential college, but the residential college does not educate studentssedulously. The residential colleges also organizes plentiful activities to enrich students'life,such as games,tea time and high table dinner and so on. The residential college utilizes tutorialsystem to coach students'professional study. The tutor encourages students to play an active rolein study, and foster the ability of study and research by themselves.The idea of residential college is to pursue"the colligate way of living". The teachers andstudents live together and build a harmonious atmosphere, and the members get along well witheach other. The warm atmosphere in the residential college encourages everyone's progress bymeans of the association with others. The residential college plays an important role in students'development. First of all, thespirit of tutorial system is individual attention, which could stimulate students'initiative to studyand strengthen their self-confidence, the students may develop the mode of thinking which mayaffect their whole life and the inexhaustible motive force on learning. Second, the students livetogether which can make them move forward together. Third, living in the residential collegecultivates students'communist spirit and the ability of team work. Last but not the least, thevariety of college life could help students realize and respect the diversity and differencebetween students, then students will try to find the way to get along with the difference and toprotect the benefits of the community.Finally, some problems in dormitory management in Chinese universities and how toimprove the management are proposed. Besides, for the situation of residential college inChinese mainland, the paper takes Veritas College of Shantou University as an example toanalyze.In this paper, the residential colleges in Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale Universityare taken as an example to study. Through generalizing their operating modes, the educationalmeanings from residential college to students are analyzed. It shows the enormous educationalpotential and a profound impact on students from the residential college system.