Potter College community created for undergraduate researchers

BY RAY DELGADO

Too often have Stanford juniors and seniors gotten so wrapped up in their independent research projects that they forgot to be active members of their community.

A new residential community will try to change that.

The Potter House residence in Sterling Quadrangle will be reborn next year as Potter College Academic Theme House, with a special emphasis on undergraduate students engaged in independent research projects.

The house will create an interdisciplinary community of students whose work focuses on research, writing, public speaking and the arts, according to John Bravman, vice provost for undergraduate education. The hope, Bravman said, is that Potter College will challenge students to think broadly about how their research is related to and affected by other disciplines and research efforts. Bravman will serve as dean of the college.

The college also will include required social components through regular college colloquia, special programs that will highlight residents' research projects, and a Faculty Fellows Program. The residents, many of whom will be working on their senior thesis, also will have easy access to the advice of Hilton Obenzinger, the associate director for honors writing, who will act as a writing consultant.

Carol Porter, associate vice provost for undergraduate education, said the idea of Potter College was born out of the discussions surrounding the creation of an honors college, similar to the creation of the Freshman-Sophomore College in 1999.

"Since that time, the number of undergraduates involved in independent study and a fascinating array of intellectual pursuits, not only through honors work, has grown by leaps and bounds, and so the time seemed propitious to experiment with an upper-class residence designed to bring students together around their shared and varied intellectual interests," Porter said.

Potter College will be located in the same quadrangle as Freshman-Sophomore College and will share some staff and programs. Porter will act as college director for Potter College, and she said students will find the college an easy place to dispel the notion that students who are engaged in independent research are "antisocial" and work behind closed doors in their dorm rooms.

"At Potter, we hope to create an environment where students welcome conversations with their peers and with faculty about their ideas, and take something away from these discussions that inform their studies," Porter said. For example, she said an economics major who is studying rational decision-making might be challenged by a peer in psychology who is studying decision-making from the perspective that people are by definition irrational.

Housing Assignment Services has agreed to offer exemptions from the main housing draw for students who wish to live at Potter College and meet the requirements to do so.

To apply for an exemption, students must write a short application essay explaining why they wish to live in Potter and describe a recent or planned engagement in an independent intellectual venture involving research, writing or other creative project. Students also must describe how they foresee themselves contributing to the diversity of intellectual interests and residential programs in Potter.

Students who live at Potter in their sophomore or junior year for at least two quarters and who adhere to the housing system's draw exemption process will be guaranteed a place in the residence the following year. The applications will be reviewed by Bravman and Potter staff to determine priority placements. The college will house about 80 students, Porter said.

Susie Brubaker-Cole, the director of undergraduate research programs, said Potter College will be invaluable in providing a sense of community for students engaged in independent research. She said that although some students have been able to balance their research with their social lives, many students have said that their living situations haven't been supportive of their research needs.

"A lot of students tell me that they feel like many residences on campus are places where you leave behind your academic life," Brubaker-Cole said. "Like the summer research college, when you have students living together who are likewise focused on an independent project, they're likely to understand the various demands they're all going through."