John Hannah believed in taking advantage of opportunities during his tenure as MSU president from 1941-1969.
In that spirit, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said the creation of a new residential college in the arts and humanities aligns with Hannah's philosophy at the MSU Board of Trustees meeting Friday.
The trustees unanimously approved a proposal to create a new residential college in the arts and humanities, which will be housed in Snyder and Phillips halls. It is set to open in the fall of 2007.
"Once the ideas began to take roots, this idea became 100 times better than the original idea," Simon said. "We forgot about who proposed it and more about the opportunity. There is a moment in time to create something special, and it happens to be our sesquicentennial."
The goal of a residential college is to link a student's academic experience to their living situation, which aims to enhance potential connections and immersion into the discipline.
Several trustees said the approval of the residential college was a historic event for the university, such as Trustee Colleen McNamara.
"To actually vote and create it today is a big deal," she said. "This creates something that has so many exciting, creative possibilities around the arts and humanities."
She said that although the decision seemed to happen "pretty quietly," there has been talk of the new initiative for a couple years.
The idea for the residential college gained momentum at an Academic Council meeting in December 2004 and has been bounced around and sculpted in several committees since.
A committee of faculty members and students, led by philosophy department Chairman Stephen Esquith, met throughout the spring and summer to develop the vision for the college. Honors College Associate Professor David Bailey, who served on the program's committee, said the push to include the arts and humanities into the university curriculum came from students.
"This new residential college becomes part of the university in a rich and robust way. It makes the university better, even richer than it is now."
But Sheila Teahan, an English associate professor, said she doesn't think the idea was well thought out.
"If the university had resources for this, it would be a good idea," she said. "But no resources have been identified. They are saying it will pay for itself. I don't think it is a good idea to press ahead with something like this."
Teahan said Provost Kim Wilcox assured faculty in the College of Arts and Letters that their college's resources would not be drained as a result of the new residential college. However, she said the College of Arts and Letters is already at a disadvantage, with underfunding and understaffing.
"It's been clear for a long time that it is going to happen because the upward administration wants it to happen," Teahan said.
Linguistics professor Grover Hudson, also president of the MSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the university has a budget crisis, adding that he has no reason to believe it is going away soon.
"The faculty needs to be involved in the basic planning and priority planning of university," Hudson said.
The new residential program is being modeled off other nationally successful models of residential colleges at MSU, such as the Lyman Briggs School and James Madison College. Trustee David Porteous said this new program is a "home run."
"Both of those have enhanced the academic programs of the students they have served," he said. "They have been a great magnet to attract high school students from across the country, and this will allow that model to move over into the more classical liberal arts model."
