Draft
April 7, 1982

 

~

Memo to File - Conversation with Arnold Thackray on the 7th of April

 

I called Arnold to get his advice on the solid and intellectual
life at English universities having recalled a remark he made about
All Souls COllege. (this was visited by Simon Flexner and must have
been part of his thinking about a graduate institution.)

Arnold's remarks came rather quickly to the high table or the

 

extended dinners which he implied were a twenty time;a-year kind of
event for any given faculty at the colleges he knew. so he thought
one should not exaggerate the extent to which this intruded on
family life. He did not readily identify any single element of the
English system suggesting that it was put together as the aggregate
of a large number of small elements. He did talk about a common

———

room that had current literature and drinks @na this led me right
—

away to the thought that we ought to augment the facilities of our
Club in the same direction.) .

He will try to think of what has been written about the British
system and send me a reading list together with the names of anyone
else that he feels I could usefully talk to.

Churchill College might be as appropriate a point of ywxew refer-
ence as All Souls.

As to American analogs he thought I should be attending to the
Institute for Advanced Studies (and I should talk to Brem and Harry
Wolf); the Harvard House system and the junior fellows (he mentioned

John Clive the historian) and he knew only a little bit about the

TU: RA
college system at UC Santa Cruz. The latter is so Californian in
my judé¢gement it may not be very pertinent.
He will be glad to pay a visit later on in the spring and we

should make some date to do that a month or two from now.

There is of course a certain tension between the augmentation
of the faculty resident& and that of other facilities:let#s say
here at Abby Aldrich. "Where should Welch Hall be"?

I should get more statistics on the where faculty live in order

to get a sounder base.