Credit: Courtesy: Lee Williams

Lee Williams is dean of students at the University of Connecticut. She has directed learning communities and residential colleges and will talk to Rutgers student affairs staff about implementing them November 17.

“Learning communities” are a hot topic at Rutgers, especially as part of the effort to transform undergraduate education in New Brunswick/Piscataway. Student affairs staff across Rutgers will come together next week to think hard about their roles in fostering education outside the lecture hall.

The theme of the 10th annual Student Life Conference, to take place November 17 at the Busch Campus Center, is “Learning in Communities.” The learning community movement began in the 1980s at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. Learning communities offer universities a way to engage students in academics beyond the classroom, encourage discussion among peers, and facilitate greater faculty-student engagement. 

The conference speaker is Lee Williams, dean of students at the University of Connecticut. Williams has nearly 20 years experience in higher education and student affairs. She was the director of Residential Learning Communities at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and director of Watauga College, a residential college at Appalachian. She also has worked as a consultant, helping higher education institutions implement and improve their learning community initiatives.

Williams will deliver a talk about learning communities, and said she looks forward to learning about Rutgers’ ambitions to create learning communities. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to ask Williams questions during the morning session. 

“Learning communities are slightly different at every institution, and that’s important,” Williams said. “There is no one model you can import onto a campus.”

Evergreen is home to the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, which operates a Learning Communities National Resource Center. More than 280 learning community initiatives at roughly 230 colleges and universities are registered with the resource center. 

According to the Washington Center, learning communities are “classes that are linked or clustered during an academic term, often around an interdisciplinary theme, and enroll a common cohort of students.” Any higher education institution can implement a learning community, including junior and community colleges. 

A learning community doesn’t require that students live together, though many communities are centered on residence life. Residential colleges, another initiative Rutgers will embark upon next year, is another type of learning community that places a strong emphasis on the integration of academic and dormitory life. 

Williams said learning communities occur along a continuum. “In a residential learning community, you could have 40 students scattered throughout a large residence hall taking the same course. But you could also have those 40 students living on the same floor, so now they are 40 among 80 on the same floor,” Williams said. “Or, all 40 of them live in a wing, and all of their roommates are in this community. That is a pretty intensive experience. You could move even further and put a classroom in the residence hall.” Some universities have constructed or designated entire halls specifically for new learning communities and residential colleges. 

“It’s a series of choices an institution makes,” Williams said. “Any place along that continuum has a chance for success.”

Implementing and maintaining learning communities takes effort from faculty and staff across the university. “From admissions to career services to counseling to recreation...every function in student affairs has the potential to have an impact on learning communities,” Williams said. “That’s really at the heart of what I am going to talk about at the conference.”

Click here to register for the Student Life Conference.