Bulletin Spring 1988

Features The Roles of the College in university Education by Char-Nie Chen and Kwok-Pui Fung [This article results from an overseas fact-finding trip taken during October 1987 by Professor C.N. Chen and Dr. K.P. Fung for Shaw College, after their visit to four well-known collegiate universities in the West. - The Editor] While The Chinese University of Hong Kong proudly celebrates her 25th anniversary, the creation of the Shaw College symbolizes another level of development for the University and has brought with it additional joy and excitement for the occasion. On the other hand, such amove may also bring in new issues, new challenges, or even new skepticisms. There may be issues about tradition, quality, and integrity of the new College; about her ways of tackling future programmes; and about the possibility of looking for her own identity. In search for some of these answers, we visited four collegiate universities overseas. These are the Universities of Cambridge and Durham in Britain, and Yale University and University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), in the United States. Selection of these sites was random, depending very much on personal contacts. The Collegiate Universities Overseas The University of Cambridge has thirty-one colleges, among them twenty-seven are for general undergraduate students. The oldest and perhaps the smallest among all is the Peterhouse College which was established as early as in 1284 and has only 205 undergraduates and 50 postgraduates. Otherwise the average size of undergraduates in all Cambridge colleges is about 400, with the exception of the Trinity College which has 632. All freshmen are resident members, but most colleges provide accommodation for a high proportion of more senior students, either in colleges or in college-owned hostels. The University of Durham has eleven colleges and two societies. The oldest college is the University College which was founded in 1832 and now has an undergraduate student population of 385 (men only). The average size of student population in all the colleges in Durham is also around 400, and about 80% of their undergraduates are resident members. Yale College began in 1701 as an undergraduate body, and over the years it has established in addition the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and ten professional schools. In Yale University ， the size of undergraduate population in the twelve colleges is between 350 and 475. In two colleges, all freshmen are resident members as the more senior students do, but the freshmen from the other ten colleges must live in a quadrangle at the centre of the University known as the Old Campus and eat in the University Dining Hall, the Commons. They are however encouraged to take some meals in their individual colleges, and participate fully in college life. After the freshman year, most students live in the college except about 10% of the upperclassmen. Meeting with Professor R. Winks, Master of Berkeley College and Chairman of the Council of Masters and Deans It might be true to say that the college system in Yale University was not formally established until the 1930s, when Edward S. Harkness, who was a Yale graduate and convinced of the collegiate system being the only solution for an ever-increasing growth of a university, gave endowment to build eight quadrangles. In fact Yale could have been given the endowment earlier if they were quick to receive such an idea and to present an approved plan before the deadline set by Mr. Harkness in mid-1928. Instead, the first endowment (US$11.4 million) went to the Harvard University, where in 1926-28 both the Student Council and the University President welcomed the idea of a residential collegiate system. University of California was originally established in 1868. UCSC, being one of the nine campuses of the University of California, was also one of the three campuses planned during the period when Dr. Clark Kerr, a member of our Overseas University Councillor, was the President of the University of California. The first batch of students was admitted 9