Living and Learning Communities Consortium (LLCC)

Living and Learning Communities have a variety of approaches that link or cluster classes during a given term, often around an interdisciplinary theme, and enroll a common cohort of students.  This represents an intentional restructuring of students' time, credit, and learning experiences to build community, and to foster more explicit connections among students, among students and their teachers, and among disciplines.  The Living and Learning Communities group is dedicated to working with member institutions of the Consortium in order to promote shared expertise, professional development, conference planning, and increased networking among professionals.  The group convened its first meeting in June 2011 and looks forward to a strong collaborative group that will host a variety of annual professional development programs.  Click on Living and Learning Communities Contact List to connect with members from the 21 Western New York colleges and universities!

Past LLCC Organizational Documentation

• LLCC Mission and Core Values Statement
• Living and Learning Communities Consortium, August 3, 2011 Meeting Agenda
• June 14, 2011 Meeting Minutes 

Effective Learning Communities have a number of distinctive features:

• They are usually smaller than most other units on campus.
• They have a sense of purpose.
• They help overcome the isolation of faculty members from one another and from their students.
• They encourage faculty members to relate to one another both as specialists and as educators.  (In effect this encourages the development of new faculty roles.)
• They encourage continuity and integration in the curriculum.
• They help build a sense of group identity, cohesion, and "specialness."

                              Source: Involvement in Learning, 1984.

Additional Sources of Information and Research

• Goals for Learning Communities
• Learning Community Models
• Learning Better Together
• Student Outcomes - The Impact of Varying Living and Learning Models
• The Zen of Unit One - Residential Learning Communities....
• LLC Planning Questions
• Building Community at Large Institutions