About Ashby

Ashby Residential College, founded in 1970, is the oldest residential college in North Carolina. We foster a living-learning, holistic academic community grounded in a tradition of liberal education and critical thinking. As a residential college, we offer a full range of classes in the residence hall that have a curricular focus of contemporary media literacies and ethical engagement in civic and academic life. We value faculty-student interactions and emphasize small-seminar classes that meet UNCG General Education Requirements (GEC).  Self-governing activities encourage students to integrate and apply knowledge to societal challenges, implement projects that foster personal development, innovation, and leadership.

As an inclusive two-year program that offers a unique living and learning environment for a co-ed student community, we have approximately 120 freshmen and sophomores with a limited number of Upper-Class Mentor participants. The Ashby experience provides a small liberal arts college environment within a large, public university, including immediate and complete access to the diverse facilities, programs, and departments of a larger university. Ashby provides a setting that encourages innovative study, small classes, unity of academic and social experiences, and close student-faculty contacts.

Click here to find out more about Ashby College’s traditions.

Ashby’s History

Located in Mary Foust Hall, Ashby 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. Ashby is a small college but with immediate and complete access to the diverse facilities, programs, and departments of a larger university. Ashby College provides a setting that encourages innovative study, small and large classes, unity of academic and social experiences, and close student-faculty contacts. Students are offered priority access to an in-house academic program—approximately 18 courses every semester—which focuses primarily on fulfilling students’ UNCG General Education Curriculum (GEC) requirements. Ashby emphasizes cross-disciplinary connections and communication within small-seminar classes as well as larger classes.

Founded in 1970 by the Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Miller and Professor of Philosophy Warren Ashby, the Residential College was modeled loosely after British universities. Miller’s and Ashby’s pioneering and visionary ideals created a community with a strong connection between liberal studies and community life, where residents make connections beyond proximity and major. Today, Ashby College is among the oldest continually operating living-learning communities in the United States and the oldest at UNCG and in the state of North Carolina.