Speech to highlight Collins history

Collins Living-Learning Center founder Tate Holt will come back to IU for an event at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the Edmondson Formal Lounge at Collins, 541 N. Woodlawn Ave. \nHolt will present stories of the early LLC and will discuss the history of Collins and the original intentions of the Living-Learning Center.\nDirector of Collins Carl Zeigler said he hopes Holt talks about the original vision the students brought to the IU board of trustees. \nZeigler said he wants to know what Holt really had in mind and if his vision is being fulfilled.\nHawkes said the LLC often invites Collins alumni to share stories from their years in Collins and after college. \n"The goal is to try to get everyone to connect with alumni who have been successful and happy," she said.\nCollins Vice President Owen Sutkowski said alumni speakers remind students that there is life after Collins. \n"People (are) active in a social side of academia to such a great extent that they forget about the economic side," he said. "They forget that the world exists beyond Collins."\nCollins Programming and Alumni Coordinator Catherine Hawkes said the Collins alumni create an automatic connection with the students because they're speaking of similar experiences.\nHolt graduated from IU in 1973 with a degree in philosophy. As a student, he helped transform the Men's Residence Center into the Collins Living-Learning Center. \nHolt presented the idea of the LLC in 1971 to the trustees as a way to save Edmondson Hall from being transformed into offices. Hawkes said people were unhappy about the potential transformation and that they thought it would detract from the community spirit of Collins.\nCurrently, Collins LLC serves IU students as a small community within a large university, in which students take the lead in planning classes, arranging events and governing themselves. \nThe LLC is a department within the College of Arts and Sciences that offers several different courses each semester. Because there are no resident faculty members, except three full-time staff members, instructors from different disciplines apply to teach the classes. The Board of Educational Programming at Collins creates interdisciplinary, experimental and experiential syllabi with help from the instructors that attempt to fit the interests of the students.\n"The students are people who want to create a community and want to be members of a community and active in their own education," Hawkes said.\nStudents who live in Collins take one LLC course each semester and most participate in extracurricular activities. These activities include the BOEP, the arts council and student government. \nAs for the community, sophomore Alice Broughton said she likes living in Collins because the people are friendly and interested in different things.\n"There's a lot going on and always something to do and people to do it with," she said. \n-- Contact staff writer Stephanie Susman at ssusman@indiana.edu.