The Residential College in Arts & Humanities (RCAH) is a new residential college

Residential college

A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...

 at Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

 in East Lansing

East Lansing, Michigan

East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located directly east of Lansing, Michigan, the state's capital. Most of the city is within Ingham County, though a small portion lies in Clinton County. The population was 48,579 at the time of the 2010 census, an increase from...

 Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. Founded October 21, 2005, the college provides around 600 undergraduates (150 students per undergraduate class) with an individualized curriculum

Curriculum

See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...

 in the liberal

Liberal arts

The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...

, visual

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

 and performing arts

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

. Though all the students in the program will graduate with the same degree

Academic degree

An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

, only the first year programs and MSU prerequisites are mandatory for graduation. The college encourages its students to get a second degree

Double degree

A double-degree program, sometimes called a combined degree, conjoint degree, dual degree, or simultaneous degree program, involves a student's working for two different university degrees in parallel, either at the same institution or at different institutions , completing them in less time than...

 or specialization in a program outside RCAH.The new college is MSU's fourth residential college, after James Madison College

James Madison College

This article is about the public-policy college at Michigan State University. For the similarly named institution in Virginia, see James Madison University....

 (from which it drew several faculty members, including its Dean Stephen L. Esquith), the Lyman Briggs School, and the now-defunct Justin Morrill College. Although early proposals named the college after Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

, university officials have not decided on a permanent name , saying that it is still too early to fix a permanent name to the college.

Snyder-Phillips renovation

RCAH classes started in Autumn 2007 in the Collegiate Gothic

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 Snyder-Phillips Residence Hall. Built in 1947, Snyder-Phillips once housed Justin Morrill College. MSU renovated the dormitory to make room for the new college. Along with a new dining hall and upgraded bathrooms, the expanded Snyder-Phillips includes a 150-seat multipurpose classroom and performing arts

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

 space, a student art gallery, a Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

-enabled coffeeshop, music practice rooms, and a language learning center.

External links

• Residential College in Arts & Humanities