Springfield College Records: Office of the President: Collegium (RG 108-19)

Finding Aid | Digital Materials

Office of the President: Collegium

The Springfield College Collegium report was published on August 31, 1970. Meetings to write the report were held from May 1970 through August 1970. The Collegium consisted of a group of 32 elected students and faculty, as well as administrators, trustees and alumni. The Collegium was formed after the Black Student protests and campus building takeovers from 1968 to 1970. In addition to the issues that these events revealed, there were everyday structural problems and financial issues at the college that needed to be addressed. The Collegium was designed to study these campus issues and draw up recommendations to fix these issues for the Springfield College President and appropriate campus entities.

Additional structure of the Collegium consisted of six committees based on priorities identified by an Interim Committee Report: Human Relations, Task Force on Readmission of 19 Black Students, Student Personnel Practices, College Governance, Goals of the College, and Communication. Members of the Collegium volunteered for the committees of their choice. Each sub-committee defined its areas of concern, studied them and made recommendations. Upon reaching consensus within the group, the proposals were presented to the whole Collegium. It was the responsibility of this committee to identify and recommend the goals which Springfield College should pursue in its future years, and to suggest ways which these goals could be implemented. In formulating its recommendations, the committee utilized several secondary sources and conducted a series of twenty-sixindividual interviews. Areas of focus by the committee were as follows: 1) A re-statement of the college philosophy, 2) Extent of the college commitment to provide services to the community, 3)Balance between professional and general education, 4) College's responsibility to study and speak out on social problems, 5) Concept of the "college family" as opposed to "college community, 6) Establishment of a microcosm on campus, 7) The college's future in regards to enrollment and faculty size, divisional structure, and physical plant, 8) College's relationship with neighboring colleges, 9) The college's financial future, 10) Residential status of students, 11) Role of the college in terms of research, teaching, and publication, 12) The role of dissent within the college community.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

Materials in this collection include reports, meeting minutes, constitutions, and memos created and gathered during the Collegium and/or were part of the final report or materials created after the report that reflected on the report’s implementation. The bulk of the collection contains the official and abridged Collegium Report, written and released on August 31, 1970. This includes two complete reports that contain the final written report, all the minutes from the meetings that took place from May 1970 through August 1970 from the main committee. Within these reports are also some supporting documentation, including a couple of reports that have to do with the councils and committees discussing the readmission of the suspended Springfield College Black Students who took over Massasoit Hall, a handbook on the Student Judicial System, and lists of fellowships for Black Students. One of the complete reports has been disbanded and put into different folders (the other has been kept complete in its original binder). In addition to this report, there is a follow-up report written by Springfield College president, Wilbert E. Locklin, called the “Report of the SC Collegium” written and released in December 1972. The report updates the Springfield College community on the implementation of recommendations outlined in the Collegium report. Finally, there are a few documents that also speak to changes at College. These documents include some meeting minutes of the All-Campus Representative Assembly and College Faculty meetings.