In this episode, we visit with Jennifer Eidum, Associate Professor of English at Elon University, and Laura Lomicka, Professor of French and Applied Linguistics at the University of South Carolina, who co-edited The Faculty Factor: Developing Faculty Engagement with Living Learning Communities. They share how living-learning communities can inform students' college experiences, and they examine the impact faculty can have in campuses' residential spaces.
See our extended episode notes at: https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/the-faculty-factor-in-living-learning-communities/
In this episode, we visit with Jennifer Eidum, Associate Professor of English at Elon University, and Laura Lomicka, Professor of French and Applied Linguistics at the University of South Carolina, who co-edited The Faculty Factor: Developing Faculty Engagement with Living Learning Communities. They share how living-learning communities can inform students' college experiences, and they examine the impact faculty can have in campuses' residential spaces.
This episode is co-hosted by Jessie L. Moore, Director of Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning, and Nolan Schultheis, a first-year student at Elon University, studying Psychology with an interest in law. Nolan Schultheis and Jessie L. Moore also edited the episode. Making College “Worth It” is produced by Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning.
Nolan Schultheis (00:08):
Welcome to Making College Worth It, a show that examines engaged learning activities that increase the value of college experiences.
Jessie Moore (00:15):
In each episode, we share research from Elon University's Center for Engaged Learning and our International Network of Scholars. We explore engaged learning activities that recent college graduates associate with their financial and time commitment to college being worthwhile.
Nolan Schultheis (00:30):
I'm Nolan Schultheis, a first-year student at Elon University, studying psychology with an interest in law. I'm the Center for Engaged Learning's podcast producer and a Legal Professions Scholar.
Jessie Moore (00:41):
And I'm Jessie Moore, director of Elon's Center for Engaged Learning and a Professor of Professional Writing and Rhetoric.
Nolan Schultheis (00:47):
In this episode, we'll focus on living learning communities, which integrate learning in residential spaces on campus. We'll talk to Jennifer Eidum, Associate Professor of English at Elon University and Laura Lomicka, Professor of French and Applied Linguistics at the University of South Carolina. Professors Eidum and Lomicka are the editors of The Faculty Factor, developing faculty engagement with living learning communities. We're excited to hear their perspective on the value of participating in living learning communities for students and to learn more about their research.
Lara Lomicka (01:31):
Lara Lomicka Anderson. I am a Professor of French and Applied Linguistics. I also served as a faculty principal for a residential college on our campus for six years, and it was during that time that I met Jennifer through the Center for Engaged Learning Summer Program. Currently, I serve as the Interim Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, and in that capacity, I once again get to work with all of our faculty directors of our living learning communities here at the University of South Carolina.
Jennifer Eidum (02:07):
I am Jennifer Eidum. I'm currently Associate Professor of English, but at the time Laura and I met, I was an Assistant Professor of English who was also a live-in faculty director working with one of our communities here at Elon, The Global Neighborhood, and in that capacity I worked with the community director of the neighborhood to kind of engage students in both academic and social programming related to our themes within the neighborhood. Living the work and also being a new assistant professor and kind of figuring it out really guided us towards this project because we were both thinking about it sort of in practice, but knew that we could offer something academically as well.
Lara Lomicka (02:47):
And I think that when we were together over a period of three summers, these conversations naturally emerged from what we were looking at in the data and what we were actually living in the field, in our communities, with students and it was just a really interesting experience to be able to talk to others who were in similar positions or in slightly different positions and getting their input on the role of faculty and living learning communities and why and how that might be an important aspect to investigate in a little more detail. So it was a really great experience for both of us, I think.
Jessie Moore (03:30):
And those conversations evolved into your book, The Faculty Factor, and that includes some chapters by other participants in the research seminar, but also other scholars who are active in living learning communities. Can you tell us just a little bit about the premise of the collection?
Jennifer Eidum (03:47):
The thing that really comes to mind for me is there is an enormous amount of scholarship related to higher education and student affairs work. A lot of that work is done by student affairs professionals and faculty of higher education. But many of the faculty who are faculty in residence are not well acquainted with that literature. They're not necessarily well acquainted with that massive amount of scholarship and knowledge that comes out of student affairs and higher education professionals. So I think one goal that we had was really to find a space to translate that work between higher education student affairs and faculty like us who might be language faculty, science faculty, stepping into the job and wanting to have that sort of quick start guide. So I think that's where it originated.
(04:41):
The goal of the book is to bridge the theory and the practice with clear takeaways so that faculty can quickly get started and do the best job possible. Of course, through the evolution of the book, we also realized that we could target administrators who might want to support their faculty better, and then the student affairs professionals who want to understand faculty as well. So I think through building the book, we realized that there were multiple audiences, but that was certainly the genesis of the book for me, was this is the book that I had wanted when I started the job.
Lara Lomicka (05:16):
And I think that we noticed that the one voice that was kind of left out of a lot of conversations was the voice of faculty. And so really, this book is written for faculty. It's written for a lot of different people, but I think there's a special place in both of our hearts for that faculty member who might be similar to the two of us at any point in our live-in experience within our communities or our work with the communities. And I think the one part of the chapter where we really tried to bring that out is through the vignettes where we tried to have faculty members share a story, share a perspective, share something that's meaningful to their community that they are serving, that they are living in, that they're living with, and to help others to see something through that particular story.
Nolan Schultheis (06:12):
I think both perspectives are very interesting in terms of why you wrote the book coming as obviously not the first person in my family to go to college, but the first person within my mom, dad, brother, family to go to college. It was a foreign atmosphere and I think Elon did a really good job of helping guide us through each little step and not making it too much of a burdensome thing. And I think you can see the parallels between what Elon is doing for their students and for their faculty like you mentioned, creating the book to help the faculty as well, the same way that they've helped the students because while it's supposed to be a one-sided battle faculty pour all their energy and all their effort into the students to make them functioning members of society, I think it's also important to go back and look at the faculty as well.
Jennifer Eidum (06:59):
Yeah, that reminds me, I too was a first-generation college student, so I've just been making it up as I go along and it's wonderful to realize that you don't have to make it up as you go along and that there are many folks both ahead of you and alongside you. Again, that was a lot of ways... The goal was to bring those voices into one space so that it would be an easy thing to find. And we know that quite a few programs have picked up copies of the books to give to new faculty and residents or new faculty affiliates who might be leading a living learning community from a live-out role.
Lara Lomicka (07:35):
And I think too, there's the online component of the book that houses questions that can be a really point of departure, a great conversation starter to think about some of these issues, to think about some of the chapters in the book in a deeper way, to take a deeper dive into it and kind of think about, "How can we make sense of this particular chapter or this particular question within the context of our own institution?" Because these are all written by people who are mainly talking about their experiences at their particular institution and what they do there, what works really well with some helpful points. But how can we take that and really do something different, do something that really meets our needs at our institution? So we're hoping that that online component that's offered along with the book will help engage in those kinds of discussions.
Jessie Moore (08:31):
Would you mind briefly sharing just a few examples of the types of roles that faculty can occupy and what that might look like in practice?
Lara Lomicka (08:39):
Yeah, so our introduction does a really... I think presents some of the different roles that faculty can take on, and there are multiple roles. They can serve as advisors, academic advisors, they can be mentors, they can be leaders in their community, they can help with the curriculum, they can help with experiential learning, they can help with study abroad, they can just participate in events. Most of them are teaching, so they may be teaching in their communities, they may be teaching elsewhere, they can be guest speakers or host guest speakers within their community. So there are lots of different ways that they can work with and for students in their communities.
Nolan Schultheis (09:22):
What would you like college students and the people who support them to know about interacting with faculty in living learning communities?
Jennifer Eidum (09:28):
The first thing that comes to mind for me is that the faculty want to be there, and so to not feel intimidated to approach that faculty member about realistically anything. One of the things that we talked about a lot in the book with various authors, we've talked about ourselves as faculty in residence is the breaking the ice can be sometimes tricky. Many faculty are philosophically excited to be a faculty in residence or a faculty mentor or involved in a living learning community, but faculty are trained and comfortable in a classroom setting where they're in the front of the room. In a living learning community, faculty are necessarily sidelined, typically, to either a support role or a more community role where they're in the student's homes, they're in the student's spaces, and so in this setting, faculty are often a little intimidated.
(10:29):
A student who approaches the faculty member with a question, with conversation, with curiosity, can actually help make that faculty member feel more comfortable and also bridge that divide to having a really fantastic discussion, whether it be a one-time discussion or a longer-term mentoring relationship, these faculty want to be there, they're there for a reason, and the ball is really in the student's court.
Lara Lomicka (10:55):
And I think one of the things that came out of some research that Jennifer and I and few others did is that it is the simple presence of the faculty member in the community that has such a great impact on the community. It's not necessarily about them teaching a course or anything else, but it's the presence. Helping them to become, as Jennifer mentioned, comfortable in that space.
(11:22):
I remember when I started in my own community, I had never been in the residential space behind the access doors before I started. So it is an uncomfortable feeling to start feeling comfortable in a space because that ultimately, if you are a live-in faculty, it becomes your home as well as the student's home, and so it's trying to merge homes together and share spaces that are different for you as a faculty member. What complicates things sometimes is when you bring families into that space and we have a whole chapter that's written about the family perspective and what it's like to involve partners and children and even pets. So it becomes even more and more complicated for those reasons, when you have others joining in that space. So great question.
Jennifer Eidum (12:18):
One piece of advice we often give to faculty is, "Bring your kids or bring your dogs to events," because that will break the ice. Many college students miss younger siblings, miss their pets at home, and so as a faculty member, bringing your whole person into the role can help students realize that A, faculty are all types of people, that they're not just that vision of the absent-minded professor or the strict professor. Whatever it is that students might think about their professors, professors are real people and they have lives that are complex and hopefully interesting and inspirational. And so bringing their families, bringing their pets, bringing their hobbies into that student setting can help students and faculty bridge that divide both ways.
Lara Lomicka (13:09):
And sometimes that can be a little tricky because what do you suddenly do with a partner who now needs access to the gym or who needs to have Wi-Fi access? We have another chapter that addresses some of those practical type of issues and bringing the different family members into the spaces. What happens when you need to find a way to get meal plans for the entire family? There are lots of things to think about. Again, I think that we've really tried to figure out how each different piece and part can work together to offer, in this book, a really great guide, manual, help information to meet all of these needs, all of the different issues that are surrounding the simple issues.
Nolan Schultheis (14:02):
I feel like it makes sense when you think about looking at work outside of a college atmosphere. You want a good workplace friendliness, you want people to know each other and then you look at education and it's almost this weird kind of gray zone where you want there to be a relationship with the student, but you also want to establish that professionalism. I think that LLCs are a good point of kind of mending the two and showing that you can have both. How can faculty emulate an LLC's behavior while remaining exclusively like a classroom professor?
Jennifer Eidum (14:34):
I have learned, after observing the rhythms of the university and seeing student lives outside of the classroom, truly seeing it, that our students have these really complex lives. They are whole people, and a faculty member only sees them a very small percentage of that time, so if you're seeing them three hours a week, let's say. Outside of those three hours they have jobs, they have club and orgs, they have friends, they have families. In those friends and families and jobs and orgs, there's all the complications of being human within that.
(15:14):
So as a faculty member, I put my students as people first. I think this ties a lot into a lot of the mental health initiatives where I see my students, I approach my students and I engage my students as whole people with tons of prior knowledge, with complicated lives, with passions and dreams and I acknowledge all of that in the classroom and I engage it in the classroom, whether it is having them develop final projects that use class expertise that they've developed along with their outside expertise or changing due dates or having adaptive deadlines or flexible grading because I know that a family emergency can happen at any time for them or for me. So really approaching that person-first engagement has revolutionized my teaching and it comes directly from my experience with living learning communities.
Lara Lomicka (16:11):
I think when faculty members have an opportunity to live with students in a community, so this probably applies a little bit more to residential college-type settings than others, you see students at good moments, you see students at bad moments, you come to understand, as Jennifer was saying, how complicated their lives are. But I think they also come to understand how complicated your life is as a faculty member. You are a professor sharing with them important knowledge of the content matter, you're a subject matter expert, you probably publish in different journals. But you also have a very different side where you can be silly or fun and you have a family in some cases, and that family is part of what you do.
(16:57):
I think when you have the opportunity to live that experience and to see students, see the whole of the student, as Jennifer said, and also allow the student to see the whole of you as a faculty member, it just provides you with a whole different perspective that you did not really see, at least for me, prior to serving in this role.
(17:20):
And like Jennifer said, when I left this position and was going back to teaching full-time, I was really mindful of how I approached students and really helping them to understand that I know that you are going to be going through moments that are challenging, where you are very busy, and I would love to talk through those with you and we can make accommodations for you based on what works, if it's a simple matter of just extending a deadline or giving you a slightly different assignment, we can talk through those, but we have to talk about it. It's not something that I can do without you saying, "I'm having an issue." So the important thing I think too is just making sure they understand that that conversation is open and you're open to having conversations about it with them.
Jessie Moore (18:11):
What can colleges broadly and their faculty and staff do to develop living learning communities that contribute to meaningful learning experiences?
Lara Lomicka (18:20):
Yeah. Well, I think one of the first things that I think about is the recruitment process. When you are recruiting for faculty for these really, really important positions, and we talk a little bit about this in our book, but just thinking about different types of faculty and how we can accommodate different types of faculty to serve in these roles well and support them. I think that's really important because they do make such an impact through these roles in their community.
(18:50):
I think the first thing that stands out for me is just making sure that in our recruitment process, we're widely advertising for these positions, that we are being mindful that some faculty may come to this position with extended family, and are we ready and prepared to make accommodations for that? That others may come with several children, and are we ready and equipped to house their children in the structures that we have in place on campus? What kind of accommodations do we need to make, if we aren't? So really thinking about that whole process would be the first thing that comes to mind.
(19:34):
Jennifer, what else comes to your mind?
Jennifer Eidum (19:35):
I think to springboard that, I think that's a great place to start because in both the conclusion to the book, but also a lot of the keynotes and seminars that we've been asked to give after the book, a lot of folks have been asking about the future of living learning communities and where we see the future going. I think that it absolutely comes down to these questions of equity and inclusion, which as universities and as this model of the residential college moves into more universities from elite institutions into land-grant universities, community colleges, so many types of institutions, we're seeing that a lot of the faculty recruitment practices remain the same.
(20:23):
Often it is mid-career, White, we found more women than men, but people who have been teaching for 10 years who are in these roles, and yet, the most impactful faculty tend to be faculty who are similar to the students themselves. As we have more first-generation students, Black and Hispanic, and other minority groups students, as we have older students coming into the university, as we have a more diversified student base, we need to see more diversified faculty engaged with those living learning communities because one of the things that faculty do so well is not just mentoring academics, but it's mentoring the life of the mind for these young adolescents. And so if you see someone like you, an example is an LLC for... It's called the Call Me Mr. LLC, and it's in Florida, I don't exactly remember which university, but it's an LLC focused on young Black men in education. So these are young men who might go to become a high school elementary school teacher, and the mentors are Black male faculty members and student affairs professionals who really inspire them to follow a particular pathway.
(21:47):
Similarly, with first generation LLCs, we find that lots of close connection with faculty because first-generation students sometimes have challenges connecting with their returning generation peers, but so many types of LLCs where having more diverse faculty group and/or focusing on particular student groups who find the university challenging seems to help the university as it's recruiting more diverse students. So students who might fall between the cracks are very well-supported in LLCs, especially if LLCs are targeting those students' identities and those students' interests and those students' needs.
Lara Lomicka (22:29):
And I think the challenge is just trying to target those students and figure out really great and strategic ways that we can actually get them into the communities. So that still remains, I think, one of our challenges.
Jennifer Eidum (22:44):
I think it requires a lot of creativity. As Laura was saying, thinking about faculty housing, I know some universities have policies where you're allowed dependents, but maybe not adult dependents. So in a multi-generational family where maybe the working mom professor has grandma live with the family to help out with the kids, that family setup may not be okay in a faculty and residence role. So really thinking about their way, there might be structures that prohibit really fantastic groups from engaging with living learning communities.
Jessie Moore (23:20):
Two things that your responses sparked for me. One is, I think that making space for pets is also important, and we've seen some institutions do that more effectively recently, but I remember when I interviewed here, I was asked if I would ever consider living in residence, and I'm like, "Well, I already know your policy is that you don't allow pets." At least that was at the time, it's changed since then. So I'm going to say, "Well, maybe, but you're going to have to look at that policy because I'm not giving up my dog."
(23:52):
But yes, all the different components of family that we need to make space for in the residence halls. I do appreciate that there other ways that faculty can get involved, even if in-residence doesn't work for them. I fairly quickly became a faculty advisor for a living learning community, and so we'd have classes there, we'd have social activities there, sometimes I would just hang out there to be available, but I wasn't living there, and so the different scales of involvement may be helpful too.
(24:24):
And then to your point also of having living learning communities that represent the student body that we are seeing, we now are going to have a first-generation living learning community here at Elon, which I'm really excited about, but I'm anxious about that recruitment piece, so any insight you have on helping connect the living learning communities with the students, we'd certainly welcome.
Lara Lomicka (24:50):
That's really exciting. We are also about to launch a first-gen living and learning community, a first-gen center and living learning community in the fall of '24, so we'll have to compare notes.
Jessie Moore (25:01):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Nolan Schultheis (25:03):
While there's a lot of expectations for teachers living in LLCs, what exactly is expected of the students?
Lara Lomicka (25:09):
I think first and foremost, the students need to understand why they're being or why they want to be part of a community. We've often struggled with location as a reason or style of residence, so apartment style versus suite style. We've struggled across the years of wanting to choose a residence based on either location or the style. And so I think what we need to do a better job of communicating, and we not just here but I think everywhere, is really having a good understanding of why the community is important and the role of faculty in that community.
(25:46):
For all of the faculty-led communities that we have, and you probably have there as well, making sure that that comes out to the forefront, that faculty are involved and how students might be involved and how students might be expected to interact in different ways with the faculty and we try to give very tangible examples: we host student hours once a week, we host socials or game night, and oftentimes those activities and those programming events take place in the faculty member's apartment. It's a way for the students to come to the apartment and to be in a space that belongs to somebody else in that big home that they're living in, that they don't get to come into all the time. And so it's kind of like a little treat for them to be able to come over and have some time. We brought our cats with us when we moved in, and so sometimes students would come to have time with the cats, sometimes they would stop by to have time with me or my husband, or sometimes it was for my kids.
(26:52):
One thing that we did to kind of make that space more accessible to the students was to install a screen door to the residence, so that as students were walking by, if they saw that the screen door was there and present, that meant that it was an opportunity for them to come in and hang out with us and if it wasn't, that meant that we either weren't there or we were doing something else.
(27:13):
I think it's just important to... Whatever messaging goes out about the community or if there's contact during admitted students days or whatever it happens to be, that the expectations are just clear, "Here's what we expect of students who are coming into the community." But I think to me what stands out first and foremost is just there's going to be interaction with the faculty member. We want to get to know the students and we want the students to get to know us. If that's not something that you're okay with, then maybe this isn't the community, maybe this isn't the route that you want to take, but that's always been my expectation is, "We want to get to know you. We have a role of professor, but also a role of just the director of the community and the faculty member who's engaged with the community and in that role, we just have a desire to get to know the students."
Jennifer Eidum (28:08):
I think living learning communities ultimately raise a really great philosophical question for students, which is like, "What is college for? Are you there to get a degree and get credentialed? Are you there to learn and network and connect? Are you there to have fun for four years on your parents' dime? Truly, what is it that you want in the college experience?" And if your answer is related maybe to the middle two, where you're kind of thinking you want to learn some things you've never learned about, you want to meet some people you never would've met otherwise, and you want to progress into a career-minded person who is comfortable talking to people of many ages with many backgrounds, if that's what you're looking for from college, then a living learning community is the first step to learning how to do that.
(29:02):
Basic expectations for students tends to be come to at least some of the events that are offered. The challenge we face is always students saying, "When I'm home, I'm home. Once I get in my pajamas or my lounge clothes, I don't want to get dressed again to go back out." And so, solving that by offering events right there in the lounge area. Other students say, "When I'm out of class, I don't want to go to class more." And so really pushing faculty to not make living learning community events just like class, but to really change the feel and the topic and the vibe of the event.
Lara Lomicka (29:43):
And that doesn't mean that they can't be about learning.
Jennifer Eidum (29:46):
Right. But the idea is that when you're outside of class, when you see something you're excited by, you want to talk about it. There's popular culture that you can have a conversation that is about your sociology class, applying that analysis to Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. You can take the things from class and apply them to the things that matter in your day-to-day life and one space to learn how to do that is in a living learning community which are tied to topics that ostensibly you're interested in, that's why you signed up for it, and the faculty are trying to show you ways of having those conversations a little bit more informally and certainly without the expectations of class.
(30:30):
I think the basic expectation for students in an LLC is come, try it out, don't just take the food and leave, but actually engage and loosen up a little bit and try it out. It may be different than what you're used to, and it might be a little uncomfortable sometimes, but just try. You'll get something from it. And if not, give some feedback because I tell you, we're always looking for more feedback from students and if they would just tell us better what they want, more often than not, the faculty and staff would be excited to provide that. They might say, "Okay, cool. Join the leadership team and help us provide it for your peers," but that too is another opportunity to get involved.
Nolan Schultheis (31:09):
I would say if a student is wanting to live in an LLC, there's a good chance that they would be kind of compelled to do those things and I think honestly, I mean, it's as clear cut as day that participation is really what makes an LLC go around. I think a big thing with students is kind of compartmentalizing. I think whenever we go to a class, we have certain social expectations, certain ways we're expected to just act, think, even just function in general and I think an LLC does a great job of getting rid of that idea that you don't have to be a separate person based off of your home or your education life.
(31:48):
So is there anything else you'd like our listeners to know about living Learning communities?
Lara Lomicka (31:52):
I think we're both big supporters. I think we always will be, after having lived... We both lived for six years in residence, and for me it was a life-changing opportunity. The opportunity to get to know students on the level that I was able to get to know students was something I would never have had the opportunity to do as just a faculty member and that was life-changing for me. I walked away with a whole different understanding of how an undergraduate student works, of what's important to them, what their challenges are, what they struggle with, what they get excited by, and just grew to really respect and love that population.
Jennifer Eidum (32:38):
I'm thinking back to when I was a first year in college and I went to a pretty small university, but I did do a living learning community, and none of my community mates are my best friends now as an adult, but it gave me a chance to, from day one, have structured ways of meeting people. During orientation you have a few days to quickly make as many friends as possible. An LLC lengthens that timeline to help you meet people who are interested in the things you're interested, whether they're your peers or faculty or staff. I think that from the student point of view, doing an LLC is a great way of having more potential friends who are interested in the same topic as you than just the random chance of housing assignments.
(33:27):
The thing that comes to mind for faculty, any faculty listeners, I think that I would remind them that now may not be the time in your career to live in as a faculty member. It may not even be the right time to be a faculty LLC advisor, but there's always ways to get involved with living learning communities, as we mentioned, as a guest speaker, just coming to some of the events and being available at the ice cream social or pizza party or whatever it might be.
(34:00):
Understanding that over the arc of someone's career, there are many ways of getting involved, and there are times when it might be right to do something really intense and transformational, like a live-in role, and there might be times of doing something less intense, but that at least two of us here have been entirely transformed both in structural career ways, I did it while on the tenure track and was very successful, I think partially due to this work, but there's also other times in a career when someone might want to do this.
(34:34):
Faculty listeners who might be thinking about it, just know, express your interest to those in charge and those involved and know that if it's not now and might be later, that's okay, but to learn the ropes and get engaged because it's fun and it's transformational.
Jessie Moore (34:49):
That's such a good reminder too, that faculty can have different forms of involvement even if they aren't yet ready to go full-in. But for anyone who is interested in becoming more involved, we will link to your book website from the show notes and include a discount code from Rutledge so our listeners can easily access the copy of the book.
(35:12):
We really appreciate you making time for this today and sharing your perspectives, so thank you.
(35:25):
No, and one of the things that stood out to me was the ways that living learning communities are a space to foster relationships with students, staff and faculty and both Professor Eidum and Professor Lamicka mentioned a couple times about the ways that they got to know students as whole people. So that's one of the things that really stood out to me, but I'm curious, what stood out to you that you think students should think about?
Nolan Schultheis (35:54):
Really, just the idea that learning and living are separate things, and I think that kind of needs to be destroyed. The reason I think that is because we've seen firsthand that living learning communities can promote both living and learning. I mean, it's in the name: you live in the same space as your professor, you interact with them on a more personal basis. I just think that the connection that starts between the student and professor whenever they're placed in an LLC as opposed to a normal classroom is much greater and I think connection is a big point of learning, and I think with a greater connection, there's greater learning.
Jessie Moore (36:34):
That's a great point to raise and there's research that suggests that just that interaction, whether it's with a staff or faculty in a living learning community, can help enhance a deeper sense of belonging and well-being for students, and we too often think about our residential space as separate from our learning spaces, but they don't have to be, they can be integrated in meaningful ways to extend the learning experience for students.
Nolan Schultheis (37:04):
Kind of piggybacking on connection, I think another great thing about LLCs is the inclusivity that's kind of promoted in them. You're going to get numerous different people from numerous different backgrounds living with each other in one small space and while that happens all the time for college students, newer students that are either getting a random roommate or trying to select someone, but in an LLC, you're getting a much wider range of personalities and people and backgrounds and cultures. I think that also helps add to the authenticity and learning experience of the LLC because not only are you developing connections with your professor on a deeper level, you're also getting to know your peers at a deeper level, which could help down the road if you needed to do homework with them, work on a project with them, whatever have you. I think that inclusivity and connection part among the students as well is very deep and important.
Jessie Moore (38:01):
Absolutely. Thanks for raising that. It's a fun space to think about. There's all that diversity in play and yet you know that you're entering with a shared interest for whatever the topic of the living learning community is, so it may make it a all easier to navigate that diversity, to know that you do have a point of connection already and then you can build on that as you're getting to know everything else about the people that you're living and learning with.
(38:30):
For faculty and staff or students who want to read The Faculty Factor and learn more about the research in the book and the ideas for implementing it in practice in colleges and universities.,We do have a link to the book site on our show notes and we'll include a discount code for anyone who would like to purchase a copy.
(38:59):
Once again, I'm Jessie Moore.
Nolan Schultheis (39:02):
And I'm Nolan Schulteis. Thank you for joining us for Making College Worth It from Elon University's Center for Engaged Learning.
Jessie Moore (39:08):
To learn more about living learning communities, see our show notes and other resources at www.centerforengagedlearning.org. Subscribe to our show wherever you listen to podcasts for more strategies on making college worth it.