We learn from differences.

Each time we encounter a situation that is different from our previous experience, we seek to account for those differences. If the difference is slight, we may learn little for we have had to reconcile little difference from prior experience. If the difference is great, we may not be able to contextualize and reconcile the situation without help from other sources, or at all. Commonly, we learn well from steady, small increments that build upon prior understanding, taking steps at a pace that each of us finds comfortable.

We learn from differences in experience. Sameness and homogeneity reinforce what we already know about our world and about ourselves. Authentic engagement with others of different experience is a common basis for intellectual growth. Content specialists summarize and convey to students years of work in a discipline. Colleagues share expertise to create value in interdisciplinary programs. Students share cognitive processes in study groups. Many of these interactions involve face-to-face contact.

We learn from differences in culture. Social as well as intellectual growth prepares us to lead worthwhile lives. Genuine social growth is rarely achieved through isolated readings and study, or from cultural sameness. Social growth is based often on the direct experience of diversity; face-to-face engagement with differences in culture, values and beliefs.

Learning takes place for many reasons. The goal of acquiring a specific set of technical skills is quite different from the goal of earning a four-year degree in the liberal arts, or from the diverse goals of a postdoctoral apprenticeship in research. Different approaches are more suitable for some learning goals than others. Much, but not all, of our learning is a social process that is based on face-to-face exchanges of experience, therefore not all learning goals are served best by proximity learning.

Each of our academic institutions has a mission that defines a community of learners with similar goals. Within each community of learners there is great variability in skills and experience, styles and needs, but generally, each institution attracts learners with consonant educational goals.

There are nearly as many approaches to learning as there are individuals. When confronted by differences, some of us prefer to move to the next level of understanding on our own. Others learn well by studying relevant examples, or listening to an experienced voice. Still others learn best by sharing their learning process with other learners. Thus for some, face-to-face contact is not a necessary element of their learning, while for others it is.

In November of 1998, Donald Kennedy, former president of Stanford University, led a weekend seminar in which ten presidents of Canada's major research universities discussed what they were struggling with the most. Reports Maclean's magazine, the renewal of the learning experience '..according to Kennedy, comes from abandoning what he calls the "400-year-old business of distance education" -- namely, the lecture. "The most interesting thing that came out of our weekend," says [McGill University President Bernard] Shapiro, "was the focus on proximity learning." '

In more formally defining proximity learning, we contend that the missions of residential colleges and universities are well served by learning in close, physical proximity. These institutions include the residential colleges that focus largely on baccalaureate degrees, as well as large research universities that provide extended apprenticeships in research and creative work. These are the institutions that Arthur E. Levine (now President of Columbia University's Teachers College) predicted would survive the tumultuous changes in higher education as we enter the new millennium [presented here as a video clip that uses RealPlayer]. We also believe that institutions of higher education with goals other than the residential baccalaureate or research apprenticeship will thrive as well because educational markets are diversifying in ways that Mr. Levine may not have predicted.