To the Editor:
The plan to create a true living and learning community at RPI is the most important innovation I’ve seen in 36 years here. Students should be shaping and energizing it in a big way. Rarely in academics are top-down administrative overhauls so well thought out, building so extensively and wisely on the successes of rival institutions—not foolishly trying to re-invent the wheel. Colleagues who have graduated from the “house” and “cluster” models of residence life credit them with the lion’s share of their education. Faculty house-“masters” at places like Yale University, Dartmouth College, and Harvard University became their main mentors in life. My own daughter’s immersion this year in a living-learning program at Mt. Holyoke College has transformed her from an “unmotivated a capella and IMing major” (her high school track record) to a high-performing Pre-medical major obsessed with biochemistry for the sheer interest of it—biochemistry! Many RPI faculty have waged long and failed battles trying to get students and the joy of learning on the same side. This residence plan actually shows the potential to win. Of course it poses some problems for students, and shows flaws—big surprise. But Vice President for Student Life Eddie Ade Knowles’s office is open to suggestions. RPI students had decades of opportunity to propose their own Residence Life plan, but didn’t. Now a remarkably promising one is sketched out before you, for the detailing. Own it, run with it, make it serve you. No?
Bill Puka
Professor of Cognitive Science
