Even the best-intentioned living-learning community may eventually run out of steam. Here’s how to see those signs and make the transition as smoothly as possible.
Interview by Keeyana Talley
Passion projects. Sacred cows. Labors of love. For being an academically centered field, higher education has a lot of emotionally charged terms that get attached to certain projects. And while that passion can be commendable, it can also cloud one’s vision and lead to a program hanging on well past its sell-by date.
For residence life professionals, living-learning communities (LLCs) may fall into this category. While the collective concept of the LLC remains strong and continues to offer demonstrated benefits to students, individual communities may not be living up to their past performance. Interest from students may drop off or it may be increasingly difficult to generate buy-in from faculty. Or it may simply be an idea that made perfect sense at the time it was created, but has now reached the end of the road.
Talking Stick pulled together a group of professionals to discuss the LLC lifecycle and strategies they have found to be most successful. Participants include Renea Forde, program director for academic initiatives and living learning communities at the University of South Florida; Brandon Frazho, assistant director of academic learning initiatives at The University of Tennessee; LaFarin Meriwether, assistant dean of students and director of residence life at Davidson College; Jennifer Stephens, director of academic-residential partnerships at Elon University; Casey Tullos, associate vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of North Carolina Charlotte; and Jordan Williams, assistant director for academic initiatives at the University of Cincinnati.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
If an institution or a department were looking to start a living-learning community, what are some of the most important things to consider? What are some of the indicators or characteristics of a successful LLC?
LaFarin Meriwether: It’s important to make sure that the LLC aligns with the university's priorities because what was beneficial 10 years ago may not be beneficial now, and the institution's priorities may have changed. If there is an intentional focus on first-gen students, then we need to know that the LLC aligns with that group of students. Or if the focus is on transfer students, then we need to understand their needs. Taking the current institution’s priority into account will help gain buy-in, determine funding, and reveal how much energy is going into it.
Casey Tullos: It’s critical to set a benchmark at the very beginning so you know what the program goals are. That's how you determine if your LLC is successful, right? If you have clear program goals, then you're going to develop assessments that establish whether or not you're meeting them. Those goals can and should evolve as the LLC grows and as the institution develops new strategic initiatives. Having clear program goals can also help you set up for a cyclical program review.
Brandon Frazho: Sometimes, genuine student interest can be the spark. When students come to me and say, “Hey, why don't we have this LLC?” I might try to find somebody in that unit, college, department, or program who would be interested in a partnership, and then we could expand from there. Then, once they’re established, assessment comes into play. In our case, we had to revise our learning outcomes, which hadn’t been done since around 2013, and then COVID-19 came along and changed things dramatically.
Jordan Williams: It’s important to make sure there is a designated lane for your LLC so it doesn’t interfere with other areas. Students have many different identities and interests, all of which are important to them, so when you're thinking of a new community, you need to make sure you’re not creating something that’s going to pull students from a different community who have already bought into something else. So it’s critical to identify a clear lane that's not already occupied by something else so that a new program isn't going to hinder someone else or pull numbers in a different way.
Jennifer Stephens: When we proposed a new LLC, we had to be intentional with our processes from the very beginning. With the help of a handbook and an outline, we tried to encourage faculty and staff who were developing the idea of a new LLC to consider how they would make sure that our learning outcomes are shared by all our LLCs, how those outcomes will apply to their idea, and how they evaluate their own definitions of success for their community.
We also asked them to think about the continuity plan. When LLC advisors moved on, we couldn't find new ones and then had to sunset communities because we didn't have the faculty and staff support. Having a clear plan in place from the beginning can avoid this problem. Our LLC advisors are typically on a three-year term, and we needed a plan to identify the next set of advisors and set them up for the transition. We have our own assessment protocol, but how is that going to work for them? How are they going to adopt it? What does their additional budget look like? We try to work through all of that up front.
We spent the last few years developing an LLC evaluation rubric. We needed to be clear, especially with some of our faculty, that we weren’t using this to evaluate whether they could keep their jobs as LLC advisors; we were simply examining how well the LLCs were functioning. Through that process, we articulated what the varying levels of community success looked like: a community that is developing, so it's not quite meeting the anticipated standard; one that could be seen as our minimum standard; and another that is so well developed that it exceeds the standard. Throughout all of this, my colleague in residence life and I (I'm in the provost's office) work together to support our LLCs, working with the advisors to meet whatever improvement goals they identify.
Tullos: Well, I love everything that Jennifer just outlined, because UNC Charlotte has a similar process. Administrators of an LLC program should understand the context in which these communities are created; at UNC Charlotte, for example, several academic programs partner with student affairs, and our LLCs are tied to an academic program with a curricular component that involves at least two required classes. This academic component is a requirement; on the housing and residence life side, we can't initiate a learning community without that partnership. We also can't sunset a learning community without a shared agreement. Understanding the context in which LLCs are created is a crucial element, particularly at the front end, so it’s important to understand where the LLC is situated at your institution and who's going to have the authority to initiate a program review or program assessment.
What are some of the key warning signs that an LLC may no longer be functioning? Or not functioning as it was first intended to?
Renea Forde: At USF, our LLCs also have a required academic component. We try hard to ensure that both sides are equal and that they understand the level of commitment needed to make these programs a success. It's important to get the buy-in, maintain that buy-in, and make sure that the information passes down from the leadership that signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to those who actually implement the program, and that the partners are given the time, resources, and support they need. These partners tend to be advisors or faculty, and sometimes the people who create the partnership fail to make sure that those actually running the programs or serving as points of contact for the program on the academic side have the tools they need to be a proficient partner in the LLC. When they lack supplies or resources, the vitality of programming and curricular efforts tends to fade.
Students have such different experiences in LLCs. Some think it’s a wonderful opportunity, and others are less enthusiastic, so it’s difficult to explain how two students in the same residence hall at the same institution have two very different experiences. If the commitment level from our partners does not meet our expectations, our MOU allows us to submit a letter to the other parties and bring the issue to a professional meeting, where we reevaluate whether the LLC remains a priority for that party. From there, we would determine the next steps.
Meriwether: We noticed a change in student demand for and interest in LLCs, but how do you decide to sunset or move forward when we are seeing a clear decline? Those numbers are very real. If people are not applying to the LLC, or if we start off with 40 students but are down to 20 by December, we have to question whether the LLC is doing what it needs to do. In this example, the LLC is clearly not working because the people who are supposed to be engaging in the community are not – and they may have no interest in doing so.
Frazho: I agree 100%. One of the things you obviously need is regular communication, and the partnership should involve shared ownership. If one side is carrying too much of the load, that is a red flag. Sometimes even students don't realize that each of the two L's stands for a very different thing, but for us, both sides are equally important. So if they're not getting both those components and that's what our assessment is showing us, then we may need to revisit the partnership.
Whenever we feel we’re not on the same page as our academic partners we try to build in time with them during RA training so they can get to know student staff. We have hosted socials for the hall directors in the past, but if they stop showing up then they are probably not on the same page with you. And the communication shouldn’t feel like it’s on autopilot, because every year's going to look a little different and student needs are going to be different, and you will need to talk about that. It should be an evolution every year, and if you start to see stagnation, that's when you have a problem.
Tullos: There are also times when the needs of the academic college or program change. We’ve had many LLCs that were initially created to increase retention in a particular major or increase success for certain underrepresented populations within the major. But as the institution has evolved and the demographic of enrollment has changed, we may need to revisit or revise those initial reasons for the program and confirm that it is still valid. Though the program may show no symptoms of declining involvement, students’ experience in the program may not align with those original goals. There may be no clear signs of a lack of interest or it may be that students are still forming early social connectedness experiences and aren’t quite ready to engage.
How do you assess the goals and outcomes of your living-learning communities, and how often do you have these assessments?
Williams: In a way, our application numbers are part of that first assessment piece. They show us the number of incoming students and who's interested in an LLC, and then we track those numbers throughout the year. We've also had a few communities where it's clear that people signed up for this but didn't know what it was, and then three weeks into the semester they move into other halls – and that tells us something.
We have an effective routine of getting observational data from our in-hall staff and our campus partners. An engineering community offers tutoring sessions in the halls several days a week, and the great turnout and high engagement led to hiring more tutors each semester. That tells us this is working, this is serving a need, and students appreciate being able to access this in the halls. We haven't explored a formative or a summative assessment like a survey yet, but hearing from our team about these initiatives, witnessing them reaching out to students, and seeing students working together on group projects tells us that these tutors are helping us meet our declared goals.
Meriwether: We’ve been talking about assessment cycles, but I think this type of feedback should be included in the process throughout the year. It’s important to know what the macro-level learning outcomes are for the LLC and to develop an assessment tool that is going to ask the questions that get you the right answers. Asking a student these questions at the end of a school year probably doesn’t provide the most accurate data, so somewhere in the middle of the process we insert an assessment tool to provide a midway point of understanding where we are; if there’s a slight pivot from what has already been planned, we can figure out a different delivery method. But we haven't changed the whole plan; it’s just that those things need to be strategically placed over the course of the year in order to get a fuller perspective of what the LLC is actually doing.
Sometimes when you're waiting for end-of-year data, you're not truly getting what the experience was, so you have to use all the pieces. We're using qualitative data, quantitative data, and mixed methods so that we can fully understand the experience. We know that assessment should be part of the planning process, but it has to be continuous. If you need to pivot, you can – not a hard pivot, but something more like, “Hey, don't go down the left lane, go down the right one.” Even if you're headed to the same destination, this path is going to get us to a better outcome. But some people can't do that because they're not trained to, and assessment is an afterthought. I don't, because assessment is my love language. My current staff keeps saying, “You're really gonna make us learn this?” and I say “Absolutely. If you want something changed, you better show me the data.”
Tullos: If your LLCs have the luxury of having an administrator, central administrator, or core administrator who's responsible for the care and feeding of the overall LLC program, and not just the individual programs, then there's some value in having a common assessment. Each LLC has its own assessment tied to its program goals, but there is also a common assessment that keys into understanding some of the shared experiences across all the LLCs. That can serve as a potential benchmark for a cyclical program review of individual LLCs. You are looking not only at how that individual LLC is performing, but also at how it's performing over time in conjunction with other LLCs. So you may have a richer picture that can help shape some of the program review.
When setting up an LLC, it’s good to have the expectation that every three to five years we're going to take a deep dive so we know how we're doing and can recognize a pivotal opportunity when we need it. This sets people up for realizing that this is how we do it. It's not a surprise, and it's not about you or an individual program coordinator; it's how we retain a rich investment in the overall program.
Frazho: We use a layered approach. We have different ways of doing assessments throughout the year, so our annual assessment serves as the bare minimum. I usually chat with my supervisor, Jerry, to try to weave a question or two into the Benchworks by Elentra survey. We also send students a 10-question, temperature-check type of questionnaire to find out how their experience has been throughout the year. A few open-ended questions allow them to offer suggestions. And even when we send it out to the survey, which is open to all students, sometimes there's feedback from those who didn't know about LLCs, and that itself serves as important information.
We have student ambassadors, so we have volunteers in each LLC who work directly with my LLC grad. They give us feedback throughout the year, and they help us plan events and other things with the budget that we provide for them. We also try to gather feedback from resident assistants (RAs). We have semester check-ins with our academic partners, but include other folks as well. We recently established an academic initiatives committee, so we get more feedback. We have a set meeting schedule, but they can come every week or every other week if they choose.
Stephens: Building off what everyone has said about a continuous process, our university conducts a first-year student check-in during the first semester. The survey goes out to all first-year students who are specific to an LLC, so if students indicate that they're part of an LLC, they get additional questions. We then run focus groups with LLC students at the midpoint of the year, and that allows us to collect the sort of qualitative information that LaFarin was talking about. At the end of the year, we have a larger living and learning survey for students, which again, if they indicate that they're a part of an LLC, they get additional questions. We have found that these are integrative experiences, so you can't tease out the various components to identify exactly what it is that made a difference. Was it the LLC? Or was it just being in this residence hall or on that floor with that RA that made the difference?
We ask students to describe how the LLC impacted their experience of living on campus, their belonging to the campus community, and their learning objectives. Advisors submit an annual report at the end of the year, and we have a rubric for them to use in assessing their larger program, which is then supplemented by qualitative and quantitative data related to how they rate their LLC. Our residential campus assessment team reviews all the data and then creates some goals for our LLCs for the next year. Then, as a central support unit, we provide what those LLC advisors need in order to make that sort of improvement possible, both as individual programs and collectively.
Forde: It's great to hear all the awesome things you all are doing. There are some challenges to consider as these programs begin to grow and multiply; we tend to be partner-focused in our communities, and we've expanded to the point where we have rebranded a bit, going from living-learning communities to residential community programs that incorporate or oversee LLCs connected to an academic college and themed communities that focus on specific student interests. We put a lot of emphasis on partners taking the lead in their own assessment, because each of them has its own relative goals. There are many different student populations in our LLCs – first-generation students and those of varying ages and representing many different disciplines – so the goals and objectives for each of those communities tend to be different. There is great benefit in having common assessments. Our partners have to complete an end-of-the-year report with general metrics that we use to gauge the success of students who participate in LLCs as compared to the populations within their academic colleges.
LLCs don’t always have the same level of rigor with their assessment, because some communities are going to value it more than others. We still need to be able to get the data we think will be beneficial in our program, but we also need to encourage LLC staff to recognize why having this data could help them maintain continuity and financing in the long run, showing how this program could meet their colleges' growth and retention efforts. They realize there's a benefit there but wish we were the ones doing it versus them. It’s a matter of finding the middle ground between being a supportive partner and recognizing that we don't have the support staff to be able to do everything. This sometimes involves shifting duties onto others, but it really comes down to just encouraging them to follow through. So that's a fine line that we walk in our department.
Here’s the question I‘ve been looking forward to: How have you utilized data to indicate that revision of an LLC is needed, and at what point is the decision to sunset or pause an LLC the most responsible thing to do?
Meriwether: At my previous institution, one of the big pieces was understanding the function of the work in the LLC; some parts were questionable in terms of curriculum development and who was responsible for the program. The LLCs were led by graduate students at this time, and they had to come up with a curriculum. But I felt it was kind of asinine to ask someone who's a first-year graduate student to talk about pedagogy when they really don’t understand what that means. When we noticed a declining number of students signing up for LLCs, despite all the resources and staff devoted to them, we didn't have the students to match the effort on that end, and the LLCs were all managed through housing. A few offered partnerships outside of housing, but the majority were managed through housing, and that made sense at the time.
Fortunately, a graduate student in our office was very interested in LLCs, and she took this on as her assessment project and dug into the LLC data. First, she looked at how many students had signed up for the LLC over the course of a certain span of time. After she presented the data to me, I said, well, this looks like we need to have a sunset conversation. Out of all the LLCs, we kept only one, the one for transfer students, since at the time, that was the one that always had interest; it was supported by the institution's priorities, and students appreciated it because they could come in as transfer students and join a community that would support them.
We shut down everything else. When my supervisor asked why we were doing this, I said, well, the data says we should; the data are showing that we are not achieving our goals – and it's not just about students not signing up. They are telling us that their experience is not aligned with the learning outcomes. They're not getting out of it what we intended.
After that, we had a whole different mindset when we revisited the idea of bringing LLCs back. Number one, this decision had to absolutely align with the university's priorities. Two, if we were going to have an academic component, then they had to seek us out because when we sought them out, we were still pulling most of the weight. And at the end of the day, we couldn't do that if we wanted the LLC to be successful. Yes, our students would love this, but it can't be just an afterthought for the partner. Everybody has to be engaged in this work.
Time went on, and an academic unit sought us out and wanted to be part of an LLC because they were losing students and felt it would help with retention. Part of the problem was that they were losing students after the first year if they didn't get into the nursing program, but rather than seeking a different major, these students were just leaving the institution. Though the LLC was committed to helping students be successful in the classes that would get them into the nursing program, it could also support them if they changed majors, and students needed to see that we could introduce them to other health careers so that they could remain at the institution.
No matter where I have worked, I have always told my team that retention is everybody's story. So we told this academic unit that we could partner with them in an LLC since their central purpose was to retain students. Then came the harder questions: What are you willing to do? What are we willing to do? Who's willing to put up some money? Are we willing to put up some money? So that became our thing. If you're an academic unit, you have to come to us and tell us what you're going to do and then be a part of the process.
We also started an esports LLC at that institution. You know why? This was a priority. They had an esports arena, and we discovered that 80% of the students going to the esports arena were residential students. A few professors were interested in creating an esports LLC with us, and we ended up with a mini esports lab in one of the residence halls. The idea worked and also reinforced the fact that we weren't bringing on new things unless there was true partnership and collaboration and that we always needed to use the data to tell the story. Why should we keep it? Why should we let it go? And that's the part we miss in most things, but especially with LLCs. With these types of learning experiments (because that's what they are), assessment is key. The data help you tell your story of success; if it’s not successful, then those funds could be reallocated to something else.
Was it hard for most people to understand why I was shutting down the LLCs? And then my supervisor having to explain to his supervisor? It was hard, but I went to them and said: “Here's the data.” And they were okay. But I also said that my data showed me I couldn't get rid of everything. And that worked out well because currently the transfer student LLC has multiple floors instead of just the one.
Tullos: LaFarin, I'm so glad you had the receipts and had the authority to make those strong recommendations. I think success depends on the context of your institution: Who is the driver and who is the supporter in that relationship? At my institution, the drivers are the academic programs, so the pathway to sunsetting an LLC is longer. The decision to eliminate an LLC is based on assessment data and involves a few steps. First, you have to get a few years of assessment data, examine it, and then clarify that the LLC is not performing and not meeting its goals. Then you give the LLC an opportunity to improve and provide some guidance on how to basically create a performance improvement plan (PIP). Then you give them another year or so, depending on what your institution is comfortable with. If they still can't make the improvements, it’s time to have a formal conversation about sunsetting the LLC so you can make more effective use of resources.
While we might see the writing on the wall because of a whole host of factors, the culture of the institution in terms of LLCs required us to be more deliberative and to give folks a little bit more runway to make a change. Sometimes it has worked, and other times it has not.
Frazho: Sometimes, it's just going back to the MOUs. I had to do that when we established a new MOU one year. We thought, okay, let's go back to the basics, let's figure this out. Sometimes you have to speak their language; academic partners might not understand the residence life side of things, and we know that a lot of times for our programming, quality does not equal headcount.
Some realignments involved something within a particular college shifting to student success or a different division. That's going to look different and we're going to need to figure that out. One quick example I can think of is an LLC partner that we're starting to have these conversations with; they almost didn't believe we were telling the truth about what students were getting or not getting out of the experience. So I had them implement a reflection in their class, which gave students the opportunity to talk about their experience. They were able to see some of that data revealed in their own terms and language and could then recognize some of the components of the areas that needed work. I put the ball in their court and said let's have your students give this feedback in an environment you are familiar with: a reflection paper in a class. That was something that helped them improve, and though it took a year to reset and refocus, they came back stronger.
Williams: We had an LLC with declining numbers, and our ideas about how to move forward differed from those of our campus partners. We were trying to figure it out. So we asked the students. There were no trends, but that in itself told a story. Everyone answered almost all the questions differently. We asked them what drew them to the community or how they would describe the community to other people to get their students involved, and they all described the community differently. We asked them what types of programming they wanted to see or what new parts of the community would entice different people, and they all said different things. So it was clear that our mission for the community no longer matched what students were seeking in the community; everyone was unclear about what the community was meant to represent because it became this catch-all for different things. The community had shifted from one central mission to four different ones; as the LLC started drifting from its original mission, it went from a catch-all to four different buckets.
After talking to the partners and the students, we couldn't clearly identify a path that would keep enough students in the community. So for us, the choice was either to pick something different and repackage the whole new community or end it. Clearly, the initial mission of the community was not being perceived accurately by students, and this is not what they're looking for right now. That made it a tough conversation, but I think if we, the partners, and the students are all on three different pages, then something is not working and something isn't aligning. That speaks volumes, for sure.
Forde: Every time we've been involved with sunsetting it has been at the behest of the campus partner or the academic partner. Either they have determined that the program isn't going to exist anymore and they no longer have the funding or that the time or staff capacity needed to support it is gone. There is a small clause in our MOU that explains that if they are considering ending the agreement, then the request should be made one calendar year in advance because we don't want to promote an LLC that will have to end suddenly. That happened once a few years ago when we had to decide what to do with an LLC that was connected to our actual provost in the provost's office who decided to retire. There were no lines in place to tie the LLC to the actual office because it was connected to him. That was something we didn't have much control over and were not happy about, because it shifted our expectations. But in the end, we were able to make it happen because it was a small community, and we were able to find housing for all the students who were going to be continuing in the program after his departure. That was an example of why we needed a clause in place in future MOUs to make sure that we had a cleaner break from a program. We did that about two years ago with our women in engineering LLC, which our former dean of that college decided to make co-ed. We let the incoming class of women in engineering know that we were going to have a co-ed community the following year, and we removed the women in engineering LLC from our marketing. I guess we've been semi-lucky in the sense that it has always, for the most part, been a clean break from the college or supporting department.
We are in the process of having real conversations about some communities that are not meeting expectations. There's been a lot of academic and professional turnover at our university, as well as a turnover in leadership roles. Several people who signed the MOU vacated their roles a year into it, and the new signer was not very interested in the LLC. We're trying to rebuild this relationship and reestablish the partnership that we had, but you can see how the lack of interest from the leadership impacts the quality of services students are getting in those communities.
When a practitioner or a partner who is supporting the community doesn’t meet expectations or vacates the position, we have to hustle for a replacement because steps weren't put into place to establish a protocol for someone transitioning out of the role. There are so many different things that can impact the progress of a community, and even though we have the benchmarks to make sure that colleges are given a certain amount of time to rebound or to reverse some of their negative paths, students are suffering unnecessarily from the repercussions of that lack of service. We have to balance support for the partner with support for the students, and we have to wonder, are those two things equal?
We are seeing the quality of services in two LLCs dwindling because we've had a major turnover of people and partners. Though we are trying to fill that gap where we can, we know that won’t be enough at a certain point. I love the idea of having this PIP, because one thing we're beginning to realize is that our MOUs tend to be very bare bones. Having something more detailed, like an employee handbook, would show what each area is supposed to do in theory and in practice, starting from the leadership at the top all the way down to the actual practitioner. A document like that would make it easier to hold partners accountable. MOU expectations can be easy to meet because they are essentially the bare expectations of service provision, but you need to have the student touch and an actual measurable impact in order to know whether or not the program is meeting expectations.
We are at a point where we've given partners enough leeway to make changes, and we've gotten promises, but those promises haven't been kept. Though emails can be effective, they're not contracts, and they're not documents. We need to put that document and PIP in place and then say, you have one year to turn this around or we will not continue to support the community.
What recommendation do you have to help other housing programs learn from sunsetting an LLC? And how can they apply those lessons to future program design and assessment?
Tullos: Intentionality and alignment are the most important factors. You need to make sure the new LLC is aligned with the university’s strategic goals, as well as those of the academic department and housing and residential life – that's the backbone. That’s where you can determine whether or not this LLC is meeting the acknowledged needs. If it’s not, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s just part of the evolution of the LLC. But if that's part of the conversation from the beginning, then it's less stressful (still stressful, but less so), and it doesn't feel as personal when that program has to be sunset or has to end or evolve into something different.
Williams: We need to be very clear about what a successful LLC means to both the department and the institution and really spell that out for partners in terms of numbers – of engagement, of retention, all of those things. We are primarily a first-year housing program, so our residents move on, but the LLC still serves as a way to encourage them to stay involved with the partners. That's a metric of success in our eyes; these students continue to be engaged with our partners and their teams, even after moving off the residential floors. And we need to be clear about what that means and tell that story. We've had some new partners come in, and we don't know if we care more about their numbers, their programming efforts, or engagement. We need to be very clear about what those mean so that they know what metrics they're supposed to be hitting.
Frazho: Sunsetting an LLC is not necessarily a failure. We have a responsibility to make these decisions sometimes. In the past, we've had different scenarios where people think that maybe we can switch things up and make things work better by, for example, moving the LLC to a different residence hall. And I think, oh, you want the shiny, bright new toy. Obviously, there are going to be issues with that decision down the road because students are choosing the LLC for a different reason and the actual mission of what you want to accomplish there has changed. Sometimes we have even had to revisit the mission with our partners and say that we really appreciate all the contributions from them, their staff, and their faculty, but we really want to connect with these students and make sure this is meeting their needs – because sometimes it's just not. And over the years as you work through the different scenarios, you learn different ways you can meet students’ needs. I've tried to add peer mentors to a program at their request, thinking that if we had another level of support or help beyond the RA, maybe we could do better. But sometimes you just have to take a year and reimagine it. It’s not an elimination; it’s a matter of pausing to reimagine how that experience can be better.
Meriwether: Sometimes the priorities of higher education context and the institution may shift because of external factors that have absolutely nothing to do with effort, energy, or interest. These factors are now impacting how we can do the work or if we can continue it. In response to the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, some institutions are saying those things were critically connected to a specific population of students on campus, and the institution at its core may not have wanted to eliminate the programs but were impacted by larger external factors. You have to assess the rollback, you have to reimagine, and then you have to rethink how to continue delivering resources to the students who need them.
You have to think about your students. LLCs are not for every student population or every campus population, and the students we had five years ago are not the ones we have right now. Needs change because of the students, not just because of the institution, and we have to be critical of ourselves and ask whether or not this program meets the needs of the present population. Does it work for our university context? Are students getting what they need from another place? And is that the better place for them to get it? Sometimes in housing, we complain that we have to be everything to everyone, but that’s partly an expectation we have created. And we know that sometimes we can't. The student can get this experience somewhere else, and we can supplement it differently within the halls.
In any case, the continuation of assessment is critical. Make sure you're assessing and that you are the narrator of your story and of the impact of the LLC. That way, if someone is saying they have to make a cut and you have to choose either this or that, you have your data to guide your choice. Data is the documentation piece and the driver for being intentional about the narrative. However, it’s also important to understand it's not always your fault if you have to shut something down, because there are so many external factors that have nothing to do with effort, interest, or resources.
Forde: It's important to verify whether you have come to the point of needing to sunset a program or to pivot. In residence education, we are accustomed to pivoting, but sometimes our partners are not and they may not recognize that. (We also need to remind ourselves that not reaching everyone is not a failure, right?) However, we are very much in a period here in the great state of Florida when everything and everyone has an impact on and a say in what we do and how we do it, so pivoting has become second nature or life or death in our institutions. Because of that, we're constantly changing, and an academic arm that's not accustomed to that might see it as a reason for sunsetting while we see it as a reason for pivoting.
We're shifting back to being FTIC (First Time in College)-focused in our housing. Because of that, a lot is changing, which is creating challenges for our communities that used to be more inter-aged and may now have to become more FTIC. Before, the communities had more social and development programs at different levels, and now they're shifting. And we have to remind our partners that while we want our communities to make a certain impact, we are also looking for quality more than quantity.
Not every student is going to join an LLC because they absolutely want the experience and are willing to put 100% into getting the most out of it. Some just want a guaranteed bed. We have a limited amount of space on campus, and an LLC is a guaranteed bed for many of our students. That's how they're looking at it, and we're going to have situations where half the LLC is fully engaged and the other half isn’t. We need to give the half who are invested the best of our time and be okay with recognizing the data that way. We can look at the full participation of our LLC, but also recognize that there was a core group. We need to look at this core engaged group for their successes and also acknowledge the group that wasn’t engaged and not necessarily say that this program was not a success, because the ones who were participating got an amazing amount of work from us. We need to look at qualitative assessment as well as quantitative assessment so that both sides of the picture are well represented.
Keeyana Talley is the associate director for residential life-student success at the University of Houston. Banner photo courtesy of the University of South Florida.
