Trinity Papers No. 19 - 'The Denominational University College Today'

The Denominational University College Today

by Donald Markwell

Trinity Papers Number 19 February 2001

Trinity College

The University Of Melbourne

Professor Donald Markwell is Warden of Trinity College, The University of Melbourne. He presented ‘The Denominational University College Today' on Saturday 17 February 2001, on the occasion of a seminar to mark the bicentenary of the birth of John Henry Newman, Newman College, The University of Melbourne.

This paper represents the nineteenth in a series prepared by Trinity College which focus upon broad issues facing the community in such areas as education, ethics, history, politics, and science. Copies are available upon request from the Tutorial Office, Trinity College, Parkville, Victoria 3052 Australia.

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I was honoured, but more particularly humbled, by the invitation to present a paper in this seminar to mark the bicentenary of the birth of John Henry Newman. It seems like only yesterday, though in fact it is a little over a decade ago, that we were marking the centenary of his death. My own knowledge of Newman is as nothing compared to that of others here today. And yet in some sense I feel that I’ve been following him around for all my adult life, although - dare I confess it? - the connections are mostly confined to the first half, the Anglican half, of Newman’s life. He was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford, where I was a postgraduate student and Junior Dean over 160 years later; and a bust of him stands in a corner of the garden of that College, making him the only person honoured in that way in that College. His election as the first Honorary Fellow of Trinity in 1877 had broken the ice of 32 years away from Oxford. Newman, while a Fellow of Oriel, was for some time Vice-Principal of St Alban Hall, which in the early 20th century became part of Merton College, of which I was later, for a decade, a Fellow. But in the Senior Common Room of Merton there is a portrait of Cardinal Manning, who was a Fellow of Merton, rather than of Newman. I was also confirmed as an Anglican in St Mary’s Church, the University Church, of which, of course, Newman was famously Vicar. It is perhaps unlikely that the College here in Melbourne of which I am head would have its Anglo-Catholic orientation were it not for the Oxford Movement.

In discussing ‘the denominational university college today’, in the light of Cardinal Newman, I am going to focus on Australian colleges, and in particular on the Colleges of the University of Melbourne. But first it may be worth briefly exploring Newman’s approaches to the place of colleges in university education.

Writing in the Catholic University Gazette in 1854, Newman entered into what he called ‘the dispute’, begun in Edinburgh and continued in Cambridge and Oxford, as to ‘whether a University should be conducted on the system of Professors, or on the system of Colleges and College tutors’. A ‘College’, Newman wrote, ‘was taken to mean a place of residence for the University student, who would there find himself under the guidance and instruction of Superiors and Tutors, bound to attend to his personal interests, moral and intellectual.’ He continued: ‘The party of the North and of progress have ever advocated the Professorial system, as it has been called, and have pointed in their own behalf to the practice of the middle ages and of modern Germany and France; the party of the South and of prescription have ever stood up for the Tutorial or collegiate system, and have pointed to Protestant Oxford and Cambridge, where it has almost or altogether superseded the Professorial. Now I have on former occasions said enough to show that I am for both views at once, and think neither of them complete without the other. I admire the Professor, I venerate the College. The Professorial system fulfils the strict idea of a University, and is sufficient for its being, but it is not sufficient for its well-being. Colleges constitute the integrity of a University.’

Newman repeated his argument that a University is ‘a place of teaching universal knowledge’, and is this independently of its relation to the Church. But, he argues, ‘practically speaking, it cannot fulfil its object duly without the Church’s assistance, or the Church is necessary for its integrity’; and, he argues, ‘Colleges are the direct and special instruments, which the Church uses in a University, for the attainment of her sacred objects’. Newman continues to develop the case for ‘small communities’ within the ‘precincts’ of a university where students will gain from the scrutiny and stimulation of College tutors, and where their various rivalries - for example, national or provincial rivalries - can find a safe outlet. Later pieces, which particularly but not solely discuss Oxford, are headed ‘Colleges the Corrective of Universities’ and ‘Abuses of the Colleges’. Amongst other things, Newman acknowledges that Colleges permit friendships of a depth formed in few other places, and a strong sense of belonging and of loyalty, sometimes misplaced. Contrasting the characteristics of a College and a University, Newman said that ‘It would seem as if an University seated and living in Colleges, 2

would be a perfect institution, as possessing excellences of opposite kinds’. Such a union, with such balance, he acknowledged was difficult and rare.

At the time in the 1850s when Newman was, in some sense, seeking to import the best of Oxford into Ireland, there were those also seeking to import the best of Oxford into Australia: the same spirit under a different sky. As in Ireland, of course, there were competing visions of what universities should be like: secular versus religiously-based; residential versus non-residential; faculty-based versus collegiate; liberal versus vocational education; and so on. In the early Australian universities, a compromise was struck whereby the faculty-based university, narrowly defined, was secular and non-residential, with religiously-based residential colleges, in which theology could be taught, affiliated to it. The University of Melbourne existed for nearly two decades before its first college was created; but as the colleges grew in strength in the late 19th century, it was not always clear which would dominate - the University or the Colleges. Although the Colleges have at times made significant impact on the University, and there were one or two occasions when the idea of reorganising the University of Melbourne as a collegiate university has had support, from fairly early in the 20th century it has been clear that the University would dominate and the place of the Colleges, varying in significance from time to time, would be less.

Most importantly, it was clear that the University, not the College, would be the principal provider of the academic education of the students. This fact, in which the colleges here contrast starkly with those in Oxford and Cambridge, constrains the significance of the Colleges in the life of the University and in the life of their students, and colours the extent to which college students treat their college as an important element of their education or, as some are tempted to regard it, a place to live, to play, and to party.

The philosophy of education which guided the establishment of the earliest colleges in this University was in many key respects the same as Newman’s, as expressed in The Idea of a University, as expressed in the writings to which I have just referred, and as expressed and practised by him elsewhere. Key elements included: • belief that the study of theology, both for purposes of broad education and for the training of clergy, should not be cut off from a university but included in it; • belief that each denomination might, or should, appropriately provide a university or college for the education of students of its own denomination, and for the teaching of its own theology; • emphasis on the value of a liberal education in the cultivation of the intellect rather than on professional or vocational training; • belief that students living together in a community of scholars forms a highly educative environment, though with dangers of behaviour that is inappropriate; • an emphasis on teaching rather than on research, focussing on the students rather than the advancement of the subject matter through research; • stress on the formative importance of undergraduate years in a student’s life, and thus on the importance of undergraduate education; • belief in the importance of personal tutorial teaching and supervision in addition to, or perhaps in some cases instead of, large-scale lectures, and of personal inter-action and oral instruction as far more effective for education than the mere reading of books; • stress on the pastoral role of the tutor, and on the desirability of friendship between tutor and student; • valuing of the importance of a university embracing a wide range of subjects, including the traditional liberal arts, with students being exposed to that breadth of human knowledge and experience, even if not especially deeply; and 3

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recognition of the danger of a college favouring a social aristocracy and of the need in certain circumstances for reform, both to uphold academic standards and ensure appropriate behaviour.

With the exception of those elements which relate to religion and theology, from which colleges which are not religious foundations essentially stand aloof, university colleges today still largely seek, to greater or lesser degree, to embody most of these ideals. Before discussing the general educational philosophy underlying present-day colleges, I should say a word or two about denominationalism and theology.

The terms in which land was first granted by the Crown for Colleges of the University of Melbourne made it clear that they were to be denominational. In the case of Trinity, the first College actually to be founded, the land was granted, and I quote, ‘for a College affiliated to and connected with the ...

University of Melbourne for the education residence and benefit of Members of the United Church of England and Ireland in Victoria’. That is, Anglicans only. Yet from the outset the College’s founders, in the 1870 Statutes and Regulations, made clear that there was to be no religious test for membership, and from the outset places were given to non-Anglicans. This policy, which I believe was emulated in the subsequent colleges, was confirmed by State Parliament in the Trinity College Act of 1927, which provided that ‘The Crown Grant shall be read and construed as though it were and had at all times been lawful to admit students ... without distinction of religious belief.’

The development of colleges which, from a clearly denominational base and with strong links in practice with schools of their denomination, nonetheless had open, non-sectarian admissions policies was highly important. Today, not only is there no religious test for college membership, but a considerable proportion of students, tutors, and staff would enter the college with little, if any, regard to its religious foundation. My guess is that this is markedly less true of the Catholic colleges than of other denominational colleges. The ‘traditional’ paths from denominational schools to denominational colleges are still significant, but in many, if not most, cases are considerably less significant than they once were.

Denominationalism is today, I suspect, for most people connected with Australian university colleges today largely nominal: the denominational college is, for them, an essentially secular environment. Denominational colleges retain councils or other governing bodies in which their Church foundation is reflected through representation of the Church, most conspicuously in those cases where the presidency of the council rests with the Archbishop or equivalent. But even in such cases there is often delegation of the actual oversight of college affairs to a lay de facto chair, or a board or executive, in which the Church influence is less apparent. This is not to say that the College does not provide an environment which is significantly shaped and coloured by its denomination and, within that denomination, the particular tradition - for Anglicans, Evangelical or AngloCatholic - which is dominant in the college. The chaplains as providers of pastoral care, the holding and advertising of Chapel services, the saying of Grace at dinner, the influence of clerical alumni, and in some cases the presence as head of the College of a priest or other religious bear testimony to this.

It seems to me that the religious basis of a college means that it cannot be, as some secular educational institutions appear to want to be, a value-free zone. The religious, and specifically denominational, foundation of the college gives it the freedom, the self-confidence, and indeed responsibility to proclaim core values - such as values of service, respect for individuals, and integrity - and to uphold them.

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What of theology itself? Many, if not most, university colleges have no real role, if any, in teaching theology. Much theological teaching takes place outside of university colleges. Indeed, some of it elsewhere in Australia takes place within universities which in the last decade or so, hungry for students of whatever kind, have incorporated entities teaching theology. Yet university colleges, particularly but not solely in Melbourne, remain very important in the teaching of theology, both for those preparing for ordained ministry and those wishing to study theology for other purposes. The relationship between the theological teaching enterprise and the residential college varies a great deal: in some cases, the theological school is an integral part of the college; in some cases, the denominational theological school is a tenant, more or less welcome as circumstances determine, within the residential college; in some cases, there are bonds of friendship and co-operation, but no more than that, between the theological school or college and its brother or sister denominational college. Much theological teaching now takes place in an ecumenical context: for example, through the Jesuit Theological College, Uniting Church Theological Hall, and Trinity College Theological School co-operating in the United Faculty of Theology, an associated teaching institution of the Melbourne College of Divinity, which is itself affiliated to the University of Melbourne.

Denominational colleges affiliated to the secular University teach theology for awards of an ecumenical institution itself affiliated to the University; and the University will also give credit toward degrees for Theology subjects. The ecumenical theological enterprise is thought by many to be stronger for having strong denominational bases than if it were a faculty which drew ad hoc from the traditions to teach theology non-denominationally.

In those cases where it happens, the fact that the college houses theological teachers and students has, it seems to me, some impact on some, at least, of the students, tutors, and staff of the residential college. This influence is undoubtedly less than when many more Theological students lived alongside other students in residential colleges; but it can still be real, stimulating some nonTheological students to debate and reflection to which they might not otherwise be challenged, and exposing them to what are often unfamiliar values, aspirations, and intellectual interests.

If Newman’s central legacy in university education is the ideal of liberal university education in a denominational setting, it seems to me that the denominational or even religious nature of the setting is now, in practice, less important than the broader ideal of liberal education in an academic community which gives supportive personal attention to the individual undergraduate. How successfully were these ideals embodied in the colleges created in the University of Melbourne?

In July 1935, the first Masters of Ormond and Queen’s, MacFarland and Sugden, died within hours of each other. Their deaths followed that of the first Warden of Trinity, Leeper, by less than a year.

The University Council minutes recorded the achievement of these three college founders in making the colleges - and I quote - ‘the home of the most vigorous life, intellectual, social and athletic to be found in the university’. High praise indeed.

In 1957, the Murray Report on Australian universities also spoke highly of the value of university colleges in the various universities. Please excuse me if I quote it at some length: ‘Though only relatively few students are in residence in colleges, they have played a part in university affairs which is out of all proportion to their numbers. Not only do they play a predominant part in social, cultural and athletic activities but they are also prominent in the Students’ Representative Councils, Guilds and Unions. Academically, too, the college residents have a very good record. They obtain a relatively high proportion of the honours results and their failure rate is strikingly low compared with the general run of students. It is true that it might be argued that in some colleges the method of choosing students for residence results in the gathering of better students, but this is not by any means the whole answer. We are confident that the corporate life of a college does have academic advantages due to the environment in which the student finds himself, perhaps for the 5

first time. Older students who have developed a habit of work or who play a prominent part in extra-curricular activity can have a remarkable effect on the first year student fresh from school; the mixing of students from different countries, from different backgrounds and from different faculties encourages the intellectual curiosity without which much of the value of university experience is lost. Lastly, the system of tutorials which most of the colleges have introduced, at relatively little cost, may claim to provide that marginal additional academic and personal help which makes the difference between success and failure. The college experiment in the universities has been an invaluable one and we wish that more students had the opportunities of receiving these benefits.’

I doubt if it would be possible to find such a high appraisal of the role of Colleges in any comparable official publication in this country in any of the subsequent decades. The rapid growth of universities, outstripping the growth of colleges, which are necessarily small institutions, or growing without colleges; the years of student dissent and anti-institutionalism from the mid1960s on; the hostility to colleges of some connected with the educational policies of the Whitlam Government; and various other factors contributed to some decades of marginalisation and decline for many colleges, notwithstanding such significant positive developments as co-education in the Melbourne and most other, but not all, Australian university colleges. In the last decade or so, the public standing of colleges has been shaken by such issues as the Gregory affair here in Melbourne, and the endless public debate about it, and by exposes of the excesses of behaviour in all-male colleges in Sydney.

Yet there is some reason to believe that the collegiate ideal of university education may be starting to enjoy some renaissance. Some of what I would say on this is clearly factual, some impressionistic and open to disagreement.

• In the mid-1990s, a study of the transition of students from school to university found that the students who did best in that transition were students living in residential colleges.

• The University of Melbourne, after various signs that it did not much value the colleges, has given many signs that it has again come to appreciate their value. Not least, with the growth in student mobility around Australia, the colleges are increasingly seen as an asset to the University in attracting the ablest students, through being able to offer them a stimulating collegiate environment in which to be an undergraduate. The Colleges now receive mention in the University’s published strategic plan, which they did not receive in its initial form. The Colleges themselves seem to have a clearer self-perception that they are colleges of the University of Melbourne.

• The decline in tutorial teaching in the University, even its effective abolition in many cases, seems to be leading many students, and increasingly University academics, to appreciate the degree of personal attention to students, and the debate and discussion of academic material, that is possible in College tutorial programs. Students seem increasingly to value the degree of attention to their personal academic and personal development which increasingly many receive in their College but which very few receive in the mass university.

• The Colleges themselves seem to have become more active and articulate in making the case for themselves as offering students, especially undergraduates, an environment that is, or can be, deeply enriching to their university education. As information technology increasingly challenges the campus university to justify why its education is better than on-line distance education, it will be increasingly important that Colleges both make this case and prove it to be true.

• In a number of colleges, there has been a deliberate process of the sort of reform, to promote academic standards and better general conduct, of which Newman had some personal experience in the Oxford of his day both as a student and as a Fellow and tutor.

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As I have just suggested, where mass universities generally, with deteriorating staff-student ratios, have less and less capacity to give individual attention to students, Colleges seek to provide this.

Mass universities have increasingly focussed on research: colleges, while in many cases hosting and encouraging a good deal of research work, have remained focussed essentially on their broadly educational function, and on tutorial teaching in particular. Where most mass universities have placed much greater emphasis on post-graduate education, in some cases at least at the expense of focus on undergraduate education, colleges have remained essentially focussed on enriching the undergraduate experience. Post-graduate students in many cases serve as college tutors for undergraduates; most colleges have had little success in attracting to their communities a critical mass of post-graduate students who are not tutors, though I think myself that these collegiate communities would be enhanced if such continuing efforts were successful.

The liberal arts have, it seems, survived reasonably healthily in a number of the colleges, which have retained considerable strengths in history, classics, philosophy, and similar subjects, in ways in which in most universities these subjects have declined or even died. A high proportion of undergraduates in colleges (as in universities generally) are, of course, undertaking what are essentially vocational degree courses. Yet one of the great educational benefits of college remains that students of one subject are exposed, day after day, to students of many other subjects - sharing so many elements of life with them, intellectual, extra-curricular, and social - so that they are in this way exposed to a breadth of subjects and intellectual approaches which, if commuting between home and their faculty in the mass university, they would have had much less opportunity to encounter.

In many of these areas, it seems to me that we see the benefits of having tertiary educational institutions which are, essentially, private institutions affiliated to a public institution: private institutions which are less susceptible to government control, and its fads and fashions, than public institutions. Of this, I think, Newman would have approved.

If Australian universities are to be, as this one explicitly aspires to be, among the finest universities in the world, then the colleges must play an important role in this. Overwhelmingly, the finest universities in the English-speaking world - such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford - stress the fact that they are residential academic communities, at least at the undergraduate level. If the University of Melbourne or any other Australian university is to offer an education equal to these, it will only be possible by combining what is offered in the departmental university with what is offered in the best colleges: and both sides have some way to go.

While I believe there is a kind of renaissance underway for colleges, it is important not to over-state what has been achieved by them, or how widely it has been recognised and the marginalisation of the colleges reversed. I would stress two points in particular: the diversity of the Colleges, and the ease with which a College can decline into disorder.

The Colleges of this University, as around Australia, vary greatly in size, in the source of their students (whether they are predominantly rural students, or metropolitan, inter-state, and overseas students), in their resources and facilities, in the values which are implicitly and explicitly endorsed, in the degree to which they are focussed on academic performance, in the ways in which discipline - if that word is used - is upheld, in the extent to which the College is focussed on being a residential college or a theological college or a yet more diverse educational institution, and in much else besides. It seems to me likely that the diversity between the Colleges is growing, and that generalisations thus become harder.

Newman thought that one of the strengths of colleges was their capacity to restrain and discipline ‘impulses to disorder and riot’. With proper discipline, this is surely true. Yet we have seen too many cases in this country of colleges in which those impulses to disorder have prevailed over the 7

order of the college for us to take this for granted. A little over two years ago, the Vice-Chancellor of this University, Professor Alan Gilbert, began an article for a College magazine with these salutary words: ‘College life! When it is good it is very, very good, but when it is bad...’

Professor Gilbert said that he wrote from ‘considerable knowledge and experience of just how superb, and nurturing, and uplifting, life in an university college can be - and just how dehumanising, humiliating, abusive and tyrannical the ‘college experience’ can become for sensitive individuals if shallow, chauvinistic or anti-intellectual values are allowed to emerge as the dominant culture’.

It is a great challenge to those of us who value university colleges, and who believe that they can offer a rich education that is faithful to the classical idea of a university education, to ensure that it is the uplifting, and not the dehumanising, characteristics that prevail. Is it one of the strengths of the denominational university college, with its commitment to liberal education in a denominational setting, that it can draw on the particular wisdom inherited with its tradition as well as the wisdom it shares ecumenically with those of other traditions? Such was the wisdom of Newman.

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