Student Housing will begin the implementation of Living Learning Communities (LLCs) on the campus of Georgia Gwinnett College. LLCs are named as a high-impact practice by the American Association of Colleges & Universities, due to evidence-based benefits for students who are participants. Living Learning Communities are an engaging collaboration between Student Housing/Student Affairs and Academic Affairs, where student cohorts live together in residence. These cohorts participate in residential programming or engage in a residential curriculum co-designed by residence life/housing staff and a faculty partner(s) that complement an academic curriculum. Living Learning communities at GGC, will engage the support of faculty partners who will support student cohorts around a particular subject area or topic.
Evaluation Plan and measures:
To be determined per the development of the initial LLC program and paired course.
Baseline measure None at this time
Goal or targets To be determined with LLC implementation
Time period/duration Initiating
In AY22, Georgia Gwinnett College submitted, and was awarded a $1.4 million grant from the Department of Education in support of two Living Learning Communities, with a curricular and co-curricular focus on Health Sciences and Information Technology. These additional funds will assist with the full implementation of this initiative.
In Fall 2023, GGC established two Living-Learning Communities: one in ITEC and one in Health Sciences, each of which has a residential requirement, and each of which is linked to a GGC course in a relevant discipline, based on the ITEC and Health Sciences program maps. Fall 2023 (current) enrollments are detailed below:
For IT: MATH 2300 (Discrete Math) enrolls 13 students
For Health Sci: BIOL 2451K (Anatomy & Physiology I) enrolls 23 students
Total of 36 participating students in these two LLCs.
Outside-class activities have included a group field trip to Washington, D.C. and several on-campus opportunities to demonstrate projects, meet with guest speakers, and more. The project PI and co-PI are faculty in Science and Technology (IT) and Health Sciences. The Associate Director of Housing is also actively involved with implementation of the project.
Currently, there are regular meetings with academic affairs constituents to plan and execute decisions to address the LLC’s needs.
The greatest challenges that may affect the progression of LLCs, are the intersections of a viable candidate pool and timeliness of completing necessary institutional processes.
