Undergraduate Bulletin > Residential College

Ashby Residential College

Ashby Residential College Core Values: Liberal education, experimentation, and human rights.

Vision Statement

Ashby Residential College (ARC) is a home on campus where students can relate serious academic studies to communal issues and personal development. ARC upholds a tradition that fosters friendships, a commitment to life-long learning, and a responsibility to the community.

Mission Statement

Ashby Residential College, founded in 1970, is the oldest residential college in North Carolina. We foster a living-learning, holistic academic community grounded in liberal education. Peace, which includes sustainability, wellness, and global human rights, is our primary intellectual and social commitment. Our experimental, multidisciplinary curriculum and self-governing activities encourage students to:

• Integrate and apply knowledge to societal challenges with progressively higher levels of explorations and expectations;
• Organize, plan, and implement projects that foster personal development, innovation, leadership, and civic engagement; and
• Develop with faculty, staff, and alumni a strong and diverse community connected by a respect for individuality and a balance between public and private values.

Ashby Residential College is an inclusive, two-year program that offers a unique living and learning environment for a co-ed student community of approximately 120 freshmen and sophomores with a limited number of Upper-class Mentor participants. ARC is a small college but with immediate and complete access to the diverse facilities, programs, and departments of a larger university. ARC provides a setting that encourages innovative study, small classes, unity of academic and social experiences, and close student-faculty contacts. A Residential College Coordinator, who serves on the faculty, resides in the hall. Other faculty members have offices in the residence hall. Students and faculty serve on governing committees and participate together in special events within the community.

Every semester, the ARC curriculum includes approximately eighteen courses taught by faculty from departments across campus. These courses meet UNCG general education requirements as well as requirements for a variety of majors. All students are asked to participate in one of the ARC multidisciplinary core courses, which represent four integrated courses from the ARC curriculum and to choose another class from the other curricular offerings, which represent a wide range of academic subjects. These seminars, along with varied types of independent study and community service work, make up approximately six hours of a student’s semester course load. The remaining semester hours are taken within the greater University. ARC students are not only full members of UNCG, but are also encouraged to participate in the life of the University.

All students who have been admitted to UNCG automatically qualify for application to Ashby Residential College. Anyone who wishes to receive more information about the program is encouraged to contact the ARC Office, located in Mary Foust Hall, 336/334-5915, or view the Web site: http://ashby.uncg.edu.