The Lahore University of Management Sciences or LUMS is discussing the establishment of a residential college system for its campus which would be the first collegiate scheme to be introduced in Pakistan.

Residential colleges are small, cross-sectional, faculty-led communities that provide the advantages of a small college in the context of a large university.

The residential college model is found at many of the top universities around the world, including Oxford and Cambridge in Britain, and Harvard and Yale in the US. It is the university-level equivalent of the 'house systems' in secondary schools, familiar to people around the world thanks to the popular Harry Potter novels.

So LUMS will be the first in Pakistan to follow the growing international trend for universities to establish residential colleges.

Two of the LUMS academics, Mariam Durrani and Sohaib Khan, initiated the plan and have set up a discussion blog for the project. They have also written a discussion paper that outlines the residential college idea and the benefits a collegiate system would bring to their campus.

This is just the sort of document that any group of faculty interested in promoting residential colleges could develop for their own institution.

Once the concepts are in circulation, the next step might be to supplement them with a proposed sequence for college creation, showing how all the pieces can be assembled.

LUMS is an ideal candidate for residential college conversion. It is a young and relatively small institution with about 2,000 undergraduates, and has ambitions to expand in the years ahead.

The larger a university, the more difficult it is, logistically, to create residential colleges, so beginning the process while the campus is still small is very wise. Perhaps five or six colleges could be established now, to include not only the undergraduates but also the small population of graduate students.

As the university grows, new college-units can be added one at a time - a process that can simplify overall institutional planning, since growth is no longer irregular but rather occurs in predictable 400-member units.

The Collegiate Way website describes the educational foundations of the collegiate model and offers detailed practical recommendations for the creation and management of residential colleges or house systems within larger institutions. It also provides links to published material about residential colleges and to collegiate websites around the world.

* Dr Robert J O'Hara established and operates The Collegiate Way website. A Harvard PhD graduate he has 16 years' experience in US residential college life and administration.

Comment:
I am a faculty member in Pakstan who appreciates the concept and thinks that such residential campuses provide a unique opportunity of learning not to be seen at the conventional campuses. However, I want to correct the misconception that this is going to be the first such example in Pakistan.

There has been, now for a long time, another completely residential university operating in Pakistan whith the name of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute or GIKI. GIKI is situated in a far-flung area of Pakistan and has been suffering various issues in strengthening and maintaining its faculty base. It may not be possible to term it an absolute success as yet. But the fact is that it is the first such university-level institute in Pakistan. The records should be corrected.

Rauf I Azam

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