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.