Re: [kent-grads] Any university's collegiate system fading?

["Tim Roll-Pickering" <T.C.Roll-Pickering@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Looking through the response it seems clear that by the 1980s at least the 
colleges meant increasingly little more than a place where some people lived 
on campus - and even then not all of them. By my time (1998-2002) the food 
was very diverse - only two of the dining halls were ever open at any one 
time and there was a clear distinction between the Rutherford and Keynes 
provision (and I too mourn the Keynes burger bar, despite not having been in 
Keynes). Then they shut down Keynes and replaced it with a reactivated Eliot 
which was little more than the Rutherford overflow... Each bar had a very 
different atmosphere too and again attracted students and staff irrespective 
of college.

> From what I can tell it seems the main reason for such a decline is the 
steady erosion of college based activities and services, combined with an 
ever increasing proportion of students not living in their college buildings 
(I remember one fuss when Rutherford and, I think, Eliot were declared 
non-smoking, to the uproar of would be finalists who had got rooms in 
"their" college and couldn't change. Similarly some colleges have double 
and/or en suite rooms - again something that all students should naturally 
have a chance to have, not just those in the right college. Is this one of 
the reasons why the accomodation doesn't even maintain the link anymore?) By 
my time most students who wanted to watch television on campus had sets in 
their rooms and so at the end of my second year the television rooms were 
scrapped. I'm told there were once college libraries but there certainly 
weren't by my time. People eat in whichever facility is the best for their 
needs. The Junior College Committees organised some events in the colleges 
but to be honest they either did not attract much attention or became big 
events for the whole campus (e.g. Keynestock). This left the JCCs as 
increasingly halls committees though there were some who fought the tide. 
Whilst some departments were still located in college buildings (e.g. 
History in Rutherford), it just felt that they had been given a block of 
available space and not that Rutherford was the History college (and the 
name's utterly inaccurate, though at least Economics had the sense to be in 
Keynes!).

Perhaps most tellingly students did not chose their college, unlike at 
Oxbridge and Durham (and possibly York and Lancaster - I have no knowledge 
either way) whilst the tutorial system was departmentalised and increasingly 
nominal (I saw my tutor twice, both in my first term and thereafter it was 
the department office or a lecturer who would give any help). As a result 
the colleges meant absolutely nothing academically - I don't think they were 
mentioned once at either of my graduation ceremonies and other than casual 
conversation with other Kent alumni I've never been asked which I was in.

Tim,
(History BA 19981-2001, Propaganda, Persuasion and History MA 2001-2002,
or Rutherford 1998-2002!) 



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