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Jody Jessup-Anger
So I last week came across an article in The New York Times by Pamela Paul, it was an opinion piece what is lost when freshmen choose their roommates, I don’t know if anyone else has read it. But that has resonated with me. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how it relates to our work with living learning communities, right, because in some way, a Living Learning Community is a way to choose a community that is is somewhat, you know, has has a common interest, at least. But my hope for living learning communities is that they push students to engage more deeply, and in some ways teach them how to do that. And, you know, we’ve certainly heard enough examples of students who have been transformed by their collegiate experiences. And I think living learning communities and learning how to live in community with others who have different interests, potentially, who have different life experiences. Is is a way for students to learn about life engaged in community and then potentially build communities as they leave college and go into the rest of their lives.

Keith Edwards
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW, I’m your host Keith Edwards. Today I’m joined by three scholars with expertise on Living Learning Communities, or LLCs. They now have a second book out living learning communities and practice that builds on their previous book, Living Learning Communities that work. Thanks to all three of you for joining us. I’m excited to hear how your thinking has evolved in new models and recommendations your offering. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and online learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We released new episodes every week on Wednesdays find details about this episode or browse our archives it’s studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is sponsored by Routledge, Taylor and Francis view their complete catalogue of education titles at routledge.com/education. And this episode is also sponsored by Huron, a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him his. I’m a speaker, author and coach helping higher ed leaders and organizations advanced leadership, learning and equity. You can find out more about me I Keith edwards.com. And I’m recording this from near my home in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We’re at a satellite location today, at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of both the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. I’m excited to have the three of you join us. Let’s just do some introductions for folks who aren’t familiar. And Jody, we’re going to begin with you.

Jody Jessup-Anger
Thanks, Keith. It’s great to be here. today. My name is Jody Jessup-Anger, she her pronouns. And I am a professor of higher education at Marquette University, and also serving currently as department chair in Educational Policy and Leadership. And a little bit about me, I got into living learning communities. Really early in my career, I was a hall director at Colorado State University. And I was living in a hall that also has an engineering, living learning communities. So I got curious about how living learning communities actually work.

Keith Edwards
Right. And I was there near that time, we overlapped just a bit doing my master’s thesis on living learning communities. So some good RAM pride right there. How about you Mimi tell us a little bit more about you?

Mimi Benjamin
Hi, I’m Mimi Benjamin. My pronouns are she her hers. And I am a professor in the Student Affairs and higher education department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. My Living Learning Community experience really started when I was a Residence Life Professional, not as a hall director. But when I was a coordinator of Residence Life at Iowa State University, they were really getting putting a lot of, of support and effort into living learning communities, learning communities broadly, but certainly living learning communities. And so I was invited to participate as a member of the Living Learning Community Advisory Committee for the campus and got really active with peer mentor programs with learning communities and then wrote my dissertation study on Living Learning Community peer mentors.

Keith Edwards
Right, over to you Karen.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
Right. I’m Karen Inkelas. I use she her pronouns. I’m a professor at the University of Virginia. And I got started studying Living Learning Communities a long time ago, over 20 years ago now. And it started at the University of Michigan where I worked for university housing, and they asked me to assess their living learning programs. I didn’t know anything about them at the time, but I came to realize that they were a really great example of an academic student affairs partnership. So I got really interested in studying them, I decided to change from an administrative position to a faculty position. So I began what was then called the national study of living learning programs. And I founded that study 20 years ago at this point, and I came all the way full circle just a few years ago, because I became faculty principal of a residential college called Hereford here at UVA. And so I went from not knowing anything about living or any programs to actually directing one.

Keith Edwards
Well, and I was great to have all of you here today I was mentioned my connection to Jody. And my connection to Karen is that when I started my doctoral program, I was thinking with the idea of studying Living Learning Communities, and then I realized all the work that Karen had been doing, and it was a little intimidated. And one of the things Karen said to me very early on in that journey that I repeat often, Karen is that don’t worry about it scholarships cumulative, you just keep building and adding on to what has gone before and keep contributing and, and keep, you know, taking that into account and building on it. And I think that that notion that scholarship is additive, you just keep taking what is there and adding more information and more nuance has been really helpful to me in many, many different ways. Let’s begin, you know, good academics begin with definitions. So let’s talk about what living learning communities are. I think this is really important on this topic, because I think they’re they’re used different ways and different campuses in different contexts. And also other language is used. So Karen, maybe you can lead us off here. What are living learning communities? And what does that include and not include?

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
Sure. So we define living learning communities as a type of learning community that have several unique qualities. They typically group students together, who are living in a residence hall, they offer a shared academic experience. And they provide co curricular learning activities, student engagement with both peers and with faculty. So each part of that definition is actually pretty important. It’s a learning community. So that means that they encourage the integration of learning. And in this case, we’re talking about learning and living in a residence hall environment. It’s a shared academic experience. And so students who participate are participating in something intellectual, they’re not just put there because they share a hobby or an interest or something like that, that would be a theme Hall. Instead, this this Living Learning Community is really students pursue something academic, involves co curricular learning. So in the pursuit of that academic, or that intellectual and diverse students participate in activities that enhance their learning, and that could be things like listening to guest speakers going on outings with friends, service learning projects, or what have you. And then finally, the students are engaged with each other. So it’s very important to have heightened engagement with both faculty and peers in a supportive climate in order to make the rest of the community successful. And that’s what we talked about in the book. So hopefully, we’ll have more to say about that.

Keith Edwards
Yeah Mimi what would you like to add to that?

Mimi Benjamin
Um, I think that, you know, we’ve thought a lot about sort of the community part of this, along with the learning part of this, and the proximity students having proximity to each other really sort of gives them that opportunity first, to create that community. But I think what we found when we were talking to people is there were some really cool academic elements that were the result of the community part, because they have established a community because they were living in a common space or shared space, that it made some learning elements more likely to occur more possible as a result. And so it was there’s a lot of really interesting opportunities and initiatives going on in living learning communities that we got to hear a lot about.

Keith Edwards
Jody, what would you want to add about what this includes or doesn’t include?

Jody Jessup-Anger
The thing that came to my mind when maybe it was sharing her thoughts is an example. And that is I was interviewing and this was not for our budget was for a previous project. But I was interviewing a student who was living in a social justice Living Learning Community. And he was talking about an interaction that he had when he was going to sleep. And his roommate was also in the Learning Community. And they had a shared philosophy class. And so he was talking about how they were trying to unpack this really deep philosophical term while they were going to bed and that how he, like they talked about it, they argued a little bit, they talked a little bit more. And as he went to sleep, he thought like, this is the coolest experience ever. And so I think that that’s just a great example of integration, right? That students are having a shared academic experience, they’re taking it back to their living space, and they’re ruminating more about it, and connecting with each other in deep and meaningful ways.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, that’s such a great example of the possibilities there. And the benefits of time and space, and informality and connection. And when it comes up, and, you know, I’m reminded that serendipity is too important to be left to chance. I don’t know who gets credit for that George Kuh. At one time, it’s probably not his someone else’s, but. But those kinds of opportunities can be really powerful. This is a second book, it’s a building on the previous book we were talking earlier, it’s it’s a completely different book, but it’s really building on the same thing. I’d love to hear how you had a really great model that I saw you some of you present on and shared with others. And now you’ve got an updated version of that. I’d love to hear from you about how your thinking has evolved, and what contributed to that evolution and what’s becoming coming into focus for you. And Mimi we’ll have you lead us off here.

Mimi Benjamin
Sure, sure. Well, there were a couple of different things that really affected and actually were the impetus for this book. I think talking to learning community or living learning community professionals, really was a big contributor to our thinking and changing some of the thoughts that we had around the original Best Practices model. So Jody and I had been co as facilitators for a residential or a research seminar through Ilan University Center for Engaged learning, and the seminar was on residential learning communities as a high impact practice, and the last year of the seminar. So this was a three year research seminar, we hosted a conference and Karen was a keynote speaker, and we were all working together to sort of synthesize I guess the things that the different researchers had sort of determined through their projects for the seminar. But you know, I think a lot of the side conversations were around, you know, like, how is this working? In practice? Like, how is this working for you on your campus, for those who were, I mean, we had number of people who said, like, we took the model, and we really kind of restructured our Living Learning program around the model. But we found this really hard, or we found like this didn’t quite fit. And does that mean that we don’t have a good living learning community, because we don’t have all the components are the exact components of the model. And so that was one piece. I think another piece of it was some on campus work that we were doing. And I would say, really, Jody, and Karen, were doing some on campus consulting and talking to people and, and hearing some questions and concerns. And also people confirming that the components of the model really worked. And they were seeing progress in their living learning communities. And then Karen being a live in person, which I think she’ll talk talk about, but I remember in particular, one of the elements of the model, the original Best Practices model was academic courses for credit. And I remember shortly after Karen started in Hereford, her saying, I’m not sure I buy that anymore. You know, like, I’m not sure that’s necessary. And so I think all of those components together, led us to have some, some new thoughts about the the original model, and what else we could contribute in the form of a book. But Karen, I don’t know, maybe you want to tell the story about your experience, because I think that really was pretty instrumental in leading us in in some directions, or at least, getting us to think differently about some components. Yeah,

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
I’m thinking and thinking back on, it probably was the greatest idea to try to run a living learning community after you just put out a best practices. You start realizing all the things in your own living learning community that you’re not doing according to the model, and then you have, you know, you have to walk the walk a little bit what why is it that you’re not actually following your own best practices. And you’re right, we did that the first thing that we had to grapple with was the academic courses for credit, peace, which I firmly believe before I started working inside a residential college that you had to have, that’s where you got the academic half to the rigor, right for the academic portion of the Living Learning Community. But then I faced reality, which is, you don’t always get what you want, right, you still have to get a course, you know, approved by the curriculum committee, you have to find someone to host it so that you can get Carter credit for it. Gotta find the instructors to teach it. And sometimes it just doesn’t match up with the theme, in our case, our residential college. And so it turned out not to be as easy as I thought to say, yes, we have to have courses. And because of that, we had to be creative and thinking about, alright, if we’re not going to be able to offer courses. We actually do offer courses for credit, but that’s a much longer story. But if we’re not gonna be able to do what I think we should be doing according to courses, then how do we increase the intellectual offerings inside the living learning community absent course. And I think that’s where I really started thinking more creatively and helping to broaden my own perspective. But what does it mean to have an intellectual environment inside a Living Learning Community? How do we import things that help students think more broadly, or connect some things they’re learning in their classes to their living environment without necessarily using a course, the crux to do that? And I now have come to realize in retrospect, but probably wasn’t the right decision in the first bottle. So that’s part of one of the revisions that we make.

Jody Jessup-Anger
I would add to that, it’s interesting that your that your point about the moving into Hereford, right, because I think that what I see evolving in our book is that it’s much more practical. You know, it’s sort of this notion of theory to practice, theory informs practice, which informs theory, and the infrastructure of the new model, I think, is much more spelled out of what really needs to happen, right. Like we interviewed a lot of folks who were coordinators or directors of living learning communities, as well as some academic staff that were supporting living learning communities. And what I imagined were going to be some of our conversations or, you know, questions of, you know, learning outcomes and rigor and how to put things together and what I think so surprised me the most in some of those initial conversations was, we needed to figure out how to get students into the living learning community, we need to figure out how to sustain the living learning community from a funding perspective. From a student perspective. One year we have 15 students in the interested in the community, the next year, we have five, what do we do about that? How do we sustain and so that practical piece of like having, you know, Karen’s experience of actually living in a residential college after having written the book, in many ways, we tried to replicate that right, by interviewing all these folks to say, Okay, what resonates with with you, what did we get right? What do we not get? Right? And I think, overwhelmingly, in the first model, we got a lot, right. But we didn’t get to the level of nuance that perhaps, is helpful to practitioners who are, you know, thinking about initiating communities, thinking about standing communities, thinking about bettering communities.

Mimi Benjamin
And this the new the name of the next the upcoming book, which is, in practice living learning communities in practice? Because it’s really I mean, the book is really based, heavily, heavily on practitioner experience.

Keith Edwards
Yeah. Well, I applaud all of you and just hearing what you’re talking about, you know, there certainly are scholars who write books, and then hunker down and defend what they wrote. But you all stayed open, and curious and engaged, right? Whether that’s consulting or teaching this course at Ilan, or living in a living learning community, talking with practitioners doing interviews, but you really stayed engaged with the topic and didn’t defend your model. But were open and learning and engaged with it. I think that’s really a wonderful model for so many folks. And I think you listened along the way, right? When people gave this feedback, this is so helpful. We’re really trying to do this, this is really hard, this feels impractical. And adjusting to that. Anything else a little bit about how what inform this evolution? Because the next question is, what’s the new model? But before we get to that, anything else that about what informed that

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
I just wanted to add to I think the reason why we were open to the change is because twofold. One is extraordinarily humbling how many people use the first best practices bottle, and, you know, thoroughly read the first book and really dug deep and hunker did to try to infuse the model into their work. And as a result, they would have very thoughtful things to say about what worked and what didn’t work. So how could we not list? Right? These are very thoughtful practitioners who came to us was authentic critique of the model. Of course, we had a list.

Keith Edwards
That’s great.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
But to answer your second question, Keith, I think the other thing that I really thought was important that we needed to change was in the first model, we kind of tucked climate into the academic environment, because we didn’t know where to put it. We realized in retrospect, that wasn’t really smart or wise, and it didn’t make sense, cohesively in the model. So that’s one of the major changes we’ve worked on to really think about what is climate meaning or Living Learning Community? Where does it fit in the overall structure of a community? And how should it now be fuse correctly? Or at least more appropriately and relevantly in the model?

Keith Edwards
Well, I think we’re warmed up enough. Jody, tell us about the revised model.

Jody Jessup-Anger
Yeah, you bet. So um, the revised model, in some ways look similar, right, it’s a triangle just like our previous one that’s loosely based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So at the bottom of the model are, is really the most critical elements and then moving up as you’re moving into the more desirable ones. And in order to, you need to satisfy the most basic needs before moving on to, you know, the the moving on to actualization. So infrastructure is still very much at the bottom of the model goals and objectives from both academic affairs, and Residence Life and Housing are part of what that initial model, or what the model continues to have different is we really tried to foreground the importance of resources, that being physical space, personnel and funding and that was a nod towards sustainability that, you know, these these initiatives cannot come out of the goodness of everybody’s heart that they need to have a lot of thought and, and some infrastructure put around them in order for them to be effective. And the next level was what Karen alluded to, which is the climate. And we say in the book that in the first model, we really foregrounded programming. In this model, we foreground people and you know, people are who makes the climate right it’s it’s having a climate where there is So that’s academically engaged and socially supportive, where students feel like they can be part of the community. And that is something that is developed by faculty, staff and students alike. And so everybody’s sort of pulling in the same direction as it pertains to the climate. And then a top that is the intellectual and social experience. This is a bit of a difference with the first model as well. We had tight boundaries around what we called, I believe, the curricula and or the academic and co curricular experience. The boundaries here are much more permeable, we recognize that the intellectual experience feeds the social experience, and vice versa. And that theme related activities are not one or the other, that oftentimes there’s, you know, theme related activities that build community and also build intellect. And so thinking back to some of the examples that Karen has provided us with, in her experience in Hereford, right, bringing in bringing in speakers, you know, going on tours, of different places, I think, Karen, you can speak to this better than I can. But I remember a conversation where we were talking about, you know, a tour of UVA with a certain set of lenses, right, and so those intellectual and social experiences, continue to feed the notion of the Living Learning Community. And then ultimately, at the pinnacle, in this model is the student outcomes that are measured through assessment. And so you know, taking those goals and objectives that academic affairs and and Residence Life and Housing have from the get go and making sure that the the, there’s assessment capacity to make sure that the the community is living up to its aims. And then the mortar between the bricks in the first model was assessment. This time, we’re like, no, that’s really what we need folks to do is to do the assessment. And for this one, the mortar between the bricks is the is communication and integration, that everyone is communicating with each other. There’s a sense that folks are pulling in the same direction. In the end, it’s really centering the needs of the community.

Keith Edwards
So you’ve done a great job walking us from the bottom up the model in this pyramid and walking us up? Karen, what would you like to add?

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
Well, first, I wanted to tell a funny story, which actually, last question we were talking about. Originally, the revised model had assessment is the top of the pyramid, the pinnacle. And I forget who we were talking to, under what context but someone said, Oh, that’s the end assessment, what a downer. We thought about like, yeah, that’s the whole point. But if we felt assessment was necessary, obviously, it’s necessary. But is, is that what a an effective Living Learning Community leads toward? As a suspect? That’s not the message? Say, right. So that’s why now it’s actually assessment of student learning outcomes, because the point is, are you reaching the your specified objectives, the are your outcomes, but the way you assess that every way you prove that is to assess, right, so we did actually wind up changing the pinnacle, because of, you know, protect practitioner feedback. So it is sort of a cyclical kind of iterative process. I was thinking what you were saying, Jody, about the tour. So this is a good example. I think the it’s all three, the climate, the social intellectual, I need to give a little bit of background, I’m sure most folks know UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson 200 year old campus. This, the center of campus is the rotunda and these series of houses that are connected by student rooms, it’s called the lawn. It’s the iconic part of our the old, traditional part of our campus. All students know it all students love it, we revere it, because that’s the original part of the campus. But of course, it was built by Thomas Jefferson pre Civil War, it was built by slave labor. And the first people who occupied those houses had slaves, and the slaves were the ones that ran the household and kept, you know, kept up to the homeless for the initial set of professors who lived in those mansions that bring the lawn. And so as part of our reckoning of what the role of enslaved labor was in the building and the maintenance of the university, there’s been a lot more research uncovered about the contributions of enslaved labor as a result. There’s quite a bit of information about this now known in particular, one of our architectural historians, guy named Louis Nelson has been put together sort of an impromptu tour that kind of tells the history of these buildings who built them, where they come from the end gives names frankly, to people that we never knew the names of previously. And so I asked him, he’s also happened to be a fellow of hair for residential college, so I asked him would you be willing to give Have the doer to our students, because I don’t know that this is a history that they know. And he was happy to do it, we’ve actually had Louis give that two or three times, consecutive years because we wanted to make sure all students had the opportunity to take the tour with them. And it’s a, it was a very important and almost visceral experience for the students, because this is the part of the campus that they revere, they hold dear to cherish because it’s the iconic part of our university. But to hear the story, and show it in a different way to help them understand that the deep complexity that goes into the building of a major university like this one, under slavery through a founder, who has his own checkered past himself, helps to really build out a much richer and deeper understanding of who we are and where we came from, and how it got to where we are now. And so it’s a good, it’s a good example about how we can use that which students already hold dear. And to help them even go even more deeper, intellectually, but also personally and emotionally. Because this is a this is a connection they felt very deeply connected to. I think that’s something that’s very powerful, but it will very likely to happen when you build together Living and Learning. Right? Because it’s not just intellectual learning in the classroom, it’s actually taking that information and bringing it home to the place where they live. And this time we’re talking about dwelling inside of their heart, but that could just as easily be being dwelling inside the place where they live. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
I’m curious how that connected to the theme for Hereford residential college.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
So we have a tripartite theme, because, you know, I have one thing when you can have three. So ours are sustainability, social justice, and mindfulness. So they definitely fit social justice in life. Yeah.

Keith Edwards
And it’s a great, it’s also a great example of Yeah, is that an academic or co curricular tour? Right?

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
It’s both, I wouldn’t want to say which one it is. Yeah, it’s,

Keith Edwards
and here, you’re talking about the intellectual and social experience? And that certainly is a powerful experience, both intellectual and social and navigating through that, Mimi is there more that you want to add around this revised model? Um,

Mimi Benjamin
the thing that I would add, and actually, Karen’s example, I think, is a good further example of one of the elements of the new model. And that is, I think something that we unpacked a little more was the co curricular, the social experience, and the intellectual experience. And some of the things that were really fun to learn about that I don’t think were as evident or as represented in the first model, although I guess you could categorize them sort of generally, under the theme aligned activities, were some of the traditions, some of the Student Leadership Committee opportunities, like just some of the interesting opportunity students had in the living learning community, that were, that were not just like, for their experience, but contributing back to the community. Like, you know, I talked to one person who oversaw a learning community or living learning community, who talked about committees and that there were student committees, and that those sometimes changed when interests changed. And, you know, there might be, you know, a committee that like an Arts Committee, and then two years later, maybe people weren’t as interested in that, and it shifted. And so, you know, talked about really kind of fun traditions, UNC Greensboro, one of their residential colleges, the building that they live in is called Mary Faust Hall. And they had an event called Faust giving, and, you know, another one did a masquerade ball. And so there were just some really cool traditions, student opportunities to kind of take the lead, and get some of those kinds of planning experiences that I don’t think were as evident in our first in our first model, and in our first book that I think readers will find really interesting. And like, there’s some really kind of neat things that people could implement or or Mod modified for their own their own campuses. Yeah,

Mimi Benjamin
that was dope. Sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
I was just gonna say that was a big omission from the first best practices model that we really sort of undersold the role of students and living learning communities. So we definitely wanted to rectify that and then revise model because it’s the students in the traditions that really are the soul of the Living Learning Community. And the ones who carry those those traditions across time. It’s, it’s really the students. It’s not the fact that they’re the staff. It’s the students that make that culture

Mimi Benjamin
and they help recruit. I mean, that experience helps them then further encourage other students to participate.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I love that. I love that it’s the students that are the soul of the Living Learning Community. I love that. Oh, Well, thank you for walking us through the revised model and sharing how it came to be and some of the different components. But the book is more than just a model. So I’d love to invite you to talk a little bit about some of the other ways that your thinking and insights have evolved, that you want to share with folks to inform practice. And Karen, we’re gonna start with you.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
Sure, and I’m really glad you asked this question, because we did add some really neat additional features in this book as well. In addition to all the real life examples that we’ve already been telling you about, many of which are sprinkled throughout the book, we’ve done two things this time around that we think are really nice additions, the first we’ve done, okay, now you need to clean that part. The first thing that we did is added embedded, embedded typologies. So for each level of the best practices model, we provide typologies that break apart the attributes of each of the levels of the model, and then give examples of what we mean about those attributes based on whether we find those to be say foundational versus intermediate versus advanced. So for example, for the climate, one of the attributes is that our living learning community should be an academically engaged community. So in terms of how we think about student participation in programs and events, you describe the foundational level to be that students participate in some of the events, and it’s usually some core students that typically participate in most of the events, that’d be a foundational level, the intermediate level would be where the majority of students participate in the majority of the events. And then the advanced level of participation would be that the majority of students not only participate in the programs, but they share in the planning of them. And they encourage newcomers to participate as well in order to keep that that culture going. So we provide those typologies for all the levels of the best practices model, including the infrastructure, the climate, the intellectual, and the social experience, assessment, and integration in the communication. And then the other thing that we added as a logic model, because practice has told us, they, frankly, wanted more information on how to assess living learning communities. So we offered an expanded chapter on assessment this time around. That includes guidance on things like formative and summative assessment, but we also included a logic model. And that logic model has its components, inputs, things like space, and staff and funding outputs, which were essentially the different levels of the best practices model, and then outcomes to assess, and we divided those outcomes, these are student outcomes, we divided them into short term, medium term and long term. So short term assessment of outcomes would be, say, greater faculty or peer interaction, medium term outcomes might be increased sense of belonging, and long term outcome would be things like retention and student growth and development. And so we provide some some practical guidance about how to incorporate those types of aspects into living learning assessments to help practitioners design not only sort of a, an immediate sort of formative assessment to think for someone simply so that they have evidence of their effectiveness as well as areas for improvement. So we hope that those two things the typologies and logic models are, are elements that will be beneficial for practitioners, and we’re really excited about, I’m

Keith Edwards
really excited about it, too, because I, you know, I do a lot of work around a curricular approach. And one of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently is that many folks feel like, are we doing our curriculum approach right or wrong, and most people feel like we’re doing it wrong, then they feel bad about that. And it’s much more of a continuum, right? It’s not as binary, right? You’re on You’re Doing It ideally, but you’re on the journey, and then you’re on your path and, and don’t make that wrong progress over perfection. And what I’m hearing in these typologies is, here’s three different levels work wherever you’re at, here’s some place to sort of strive for, and, and work toward, and I think it really puts it out of the do, are we doing LLCs right or wrong into this is helpful for how we can improve it. So how we can make it better how we can take it to the next level. And I’m hearing that both in the top typologies. And the logic bottle, it really feels focused on progress and improvement rather than yea or nay.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
Right. That’s something actually we wrote in the book as well, as we hope take the best practice model is aspiration. Right? We don’t there’s no such thing as the perfect living learning community that has everything at the optimal level in our model. I ran one for five years and my own residential college does not mean it’s not operating optimally and all levels. It’s not it’s not possible reality is reality. Right? So instead, we’re hoping that those typologies are the way to help practices, as you said, think about okay, if we’re at the foundational level, how could we maybe move to the intermediate? And then if we get to the image immediate level, maybe a few years down the road? How can we

Keith Edwards
move fast? Yeah, progress over perfection. I love it. Jody, what do you want to add?

Jody Jessup-Anger
I think that you really captured the spirit of the typologies. The beneficial thing I see about them is that folks can prioritize what they want to work on, you know, if they facilities is a big part of living learning communities, and if there’s just no money in the budget for facilities, I think that folks can set that aside and look at climate or look at the, the experiences that that students are having in the communities. And then if there is a time where there’s, you know, a capital project, or they’re building a new residence hall, I think that that’s the time then to take out the facilities piece and be like, Okay, how can we do this in a way that’s sustainable? Right? How can we think about living learning communities as areas or as communities that sometimes contract and sometimes expand? And how might we build our facilities in a way that captures those effectively? So yeah, I’m really excited about the typologies. I think that they are, I’m excited about the logic models, too. But, you know, every conversation that I’ve heard with, that I’ve had with folks is that they there are areas that they feel embarrassed about, or that they feel like they they’re not living up to. And I think that the typologies are a way to address that. And you know, and in some ways, give folks something to strive for, and allow them to set aside the things that you know, that they don’t have control over, for whatever reason,

Keith Edwards
yeah, well, you’re often dreaming in the realm of the ideal, or the realm of reality, right? Like, there’s just no way that we would be able to do that. So that’s really great. What else do you want to add here, Mimi,

Mimi Benjamin
I’m still on the typologies. I think one of the things that that they offer is an expanded audience for the book. Because if a campus just wants to get started, I think the book can be really helpful in the typologies can be quite helpful at the foundational level, if a campus has been doing learning communities for many, many years, I still think that the book and the typologies can be quite helpful, because there is that sort of room for growth or some recommendations for how to move it to a different level. And so I I’m excited about the, you know, seeing how people respond to that, because, again, it’s the it’s a very practical element of the book. But it also speaks to all audiences. And I don’t think anybody would look at it and say, well, we’ve been doing this for a long time. You know, I don’t imagine this is going to be that helpful to us, I think it will be helpful to everybody. And

Keith Edwards
those different audiences might be directors of housing, it might be potential faculty, fellows, it might be decision makers, it might be people who are deciding what new themes we’re going to open up and what we’re not. Alright, where are we going to put resources? Are there other other players that you’re thinking of you also mentioned people who have robust, long held Living Learning Communities and folks who are starting them, and some of us might have both right, starting this one, these have been existing.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
I’d say champions, too. So let’s say you’re a person on a college campus who is advocating for living learning communities, and for whatever reason, you’re not getting traction, you can use the combination of the best practices model and the typology say, you know, we don’t have to build the archetype. From the get go, right, we can start small, and start at the foundational level and build slowly. I think this would be a great way to help people get in from the ground up. Sorry, go ahead, keep

Keith Edwards
having a five year plan, right in your one, we just wanted to get this that would be a great starting point. And then we’ll build an add this and add this as we go. Go ahead, Jody.

Jody Jessup-Anger
I think another audience for the book is students. You know, I mentioned in my intro that I was a hall director in a, in a building that had a living learning community when I first started, and I had no idea what it was supposed to be. And actually, our area coordinator at the time really didn’t either. And so the instruction that I was giving given was just Oh, call over to engineering and see if you can get some faculty involved. And, you know, I feel like it was a pretty naive call that I made over to engineering and it didn’t get much traction. And so one of the things that I really appreciate about living learning communities and about the book as a contribution to understanding them, is that really a Living Learning Community is a microcosm for how academic and student affairs can work together effectively. And so the more that students can read about these complexities and think about them, the better and, you know, instead of trying to tackle the whole university, this, our book gives gives an example of a really tangible effort that students can start to piece together, you know, how faculty and student affairs might have different goals and objectives, how they might talk about things differently, and how they might have different reward systems and how that might affect the you know, the outcomes of the communities. And so my hope is that, that students pick up this book as well and start to think about, you know, themselves can see themselves in the book and start to think about their contribution to really helping to promote an integrated university.

Keith Edwards
When I remember when Karen mentioned, which was what got her curious about, you know, assigned to, to assess Living Learning Communities, and then what really got you interested was this academic student affairs partnership and how it was working. And going back to even in your roots in your beginning. I

Mimi Benjamin
Could see it also for peer mentors. I mean, that’s kind of when you’re talking about students, Jody, I think about peer mentors, who are working with the programs and, you know, don’t necessarily have a background in kind of why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s just, you know, this was a good thing, I had a good experience, I’ll be part of this. And to get a better understanding of what they’re doing and why I could really see that that could be helpful in like their training or something.

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
And then a backhanded way, maybe, to convince more people to join the field of student affairs, right? Because now they see, they see themselves in a more middle level, this is how I fit in. Right? This is how I’m making contribution to my living learning community. But I could do this for a living what?

Keith Edwards
Well, we certainly have had plenty of episodes about people leaving Student Affairs, it’s nice, we get a little shout out on bringing people into Student Affairs. So So Thanks for that. We are running close to our end time. So I just want to move us to our final question and give you all a little bit of space to answer this. But we always end with all the same question. This is student affairs. Now we’d like to hear what you’re thinking about now might be related to the book might be related to some of the work you’re doing around it might be related to whatever is pressing in your world at the time. And if you want to you can share where folks can connect with you. So, Jody, what is with you now?

Jody Jessup-Anger
So I last week came across an article in The New York Times by Pamela Paul, it was an opinion piece what is lost when freshmen choose their roommates, I don’t know if anyone else has read it. But that has resonated with me. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how it relates to our work with living learning communities, right, because in some way, a Living Learning Community is a way to choose a community that is is somewhat, you know, has has a common interest, at least. But my hope for living learning communities is that they push students to engage more deeply, and in some ways teach them how to do that. And, you know, we’ve certainly heard enough examples of students who have been transformed by their collegiate experiences. And I think living learning communities and learning how to live in community with others who have different interests, potentially, who have different life experiences. Is is a way for students to learn about life engaged in community and then potentially build communities as they leave college and go into the rest of their lives. So Pamela, and Paul got me thinking about, you know, should we allow students to choose that roommates? Should we allow them to choose the living learning community that they live in? I say yes. But how, how if they are making those choices, how can we still make it a meaningful living or live meaningful learning experience for students? As far as how to reach me? I’m at Marquette University. My email jody.jessup.anger@marquette.edu, or just get on our website and type in Jody Jessup. And it’ll probably get you to Jody Jessop anger, because it’s a long name and a long email address.

Keith Edwards
Great. We’ll get a link to that article from Pamela Paul, in the show notes as well with with some other goodies for folks. Mimi what are you pondering?

Mimi Benjamin
Now, you know, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about just this concept of student success and student centeredness. My campuses using the phrase student centered a lot. And I am wondering how that has changed or how that has exploded in in terms of the I don’t know, language that we’re using since COVID. And so one of the projects that I want to get into in the coming months is a little bit more of a review of literature around what is student’s success and what is students centeredness? And what do we mean by that? I think that sometimes some of the language that we use gets watered down to meaning almost nothing. And I’m hoping that these words and phrases aren’t turning into nothing. But sometimes it feels like they’re so overused that I don’t know that what they have. I don’t know that they have as much meaning anymore. And so that’s something that has been on my mind and I’m seeing as a little bit of a longer term project, some some in depth literature, review and searching. So I’ve got a colleague in the Department of History who’s interested in this with me and a librarian who is willing to jump on This project. So I think that’s what I’ll be thinking a bit about in the coming coming months. But in terms of reaching me, I’m at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, my email address is so feel free to email me there.

Keith Edwards
Yeah, I love that student centeredness. My experience is that is that I and others, but I’ll use I, I often use student centered and then I would really be thinking about my department. And what we do and what we get credit for. So I was using student centered language but being really kind of department ego centered. And and I think that’s, that’s even easier to fall into in a scarcity mindset where you’re worried about an enrollment cliff, when you’re worried about dollars, when you’re worried about staffing cuts, when you’re worried about some of these other things, making sure that our office is getting credit and doing this and then it’s then you’re then you’re focused on what you’re doing, rather than really being student centered. And so So I love that. Karen, what are you pondering now?

Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas
So this is a really timely question for me, because I have a daughter who’s Senior in high school. And so she’s in the midst of making your decision about where still going to go to college. Let me tell you being a person who studies the college experience, and then being on the other side of being a parent, going through this process is completely different than some of the it’s kind of like being a principal, the living learning community all over again, some of the things I thought I knew, because this is my field, nope, turned upside down on its head. Results of this. So I have been thinking a lot because we’ve been running up and down the East Coast doing some last minute visits of colleges, oh, my God, I make a decision. And I listened to the questions that the students are asking, During these visits days. And the two things that really struck me is most of the questions were around how do I get access to the scarce resource, whether that be, you know, direct admission to the medical school that’s attached to the university? Or how do I get into this exclusive major, or whatever that might be? I mean, these are students who haven’t even decided they’re going to go to the college yet, are asking these questions, or they were flat out asking their their parents about mental health resources available at the college. And I just, it had been me so worried and concerned that these are students haven’t even set foot on campus yet, you could already see their mental health manifesting, just by the nature of the questions they’re asking. And I started feeling really worried about what kind of college experience they didn’t have, at this point, if they haven’t even started yet, and they’re already worried about what they’re going to not be able to do. So it just seems like I don’t know, whatever we’ve done to students, we need to stop doing it. Because they should be enjoying these transformative years, their life, and I have a feeling so many of them are already starting thinking, this is a checklist that I have to accomplish. And that’s not what college should be. I don’t know how we messed up along the way. But whatever we need to do, we need to make make that go away. Because I want my daughter to have a good experience. We don’t want her to think that college is a hope you have to jump through to get to the next thing. So for that matter, I hope we can all do a better job in helping our students seize the opportunities and thrive when they’re in college. And maybe I’ll slow down a little bit. So we don’t not worry about how we’re going to get into medical school haven’t even gone to college. To reach me, I’m really old school I don’t like anything except email. It’s parent dot English like virginia.edu. I do have one plug. And that is for all you folks out there who are listening are interested in living learning communities. For the first time ever a cool Hello eyes academic initiatives conference in the residential college society. So the folks who put on conferences around Living Learning Communities and residential colleges, they’re going to be holding a joint conference this fall in October 2024 in Portland. So folks, if you’re interested in continuing this conversation, or you want to network with other professionals that work in this arena, please consider joining us in Portland this fall, I think it’d be an excellent opportunity because you know, we’ve never actually put the two conferences together and I’m really excited to see what we do.

Keith Edwards
That’s great. And we’ll meet we’ll get a link to that in the show notes as well. We’ll also add a link to our episode where we had student affairs professionals who have students who have children who are in college or about to be in college and Karen your comments about how it is up ended your thinking and and what you’re saying. I believe the word fraud was the record. And used in that episode as people sharing some of that so thanks to all three of you for writing the first book writing the second book, being open to feedback all along the way listening and being curious and evolving your thinking I think It’s it’s it’s really great and folks can get the book wherever you get your books. So thanks for being part of this. I also want to thank our sponsors of today’s episode Routledge and Huron, Routledge, Taylor and Francis is the world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide range of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers. They have welcomed stylus publishing to their publishing program and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching student affairs professional development, assessment and more. Routledge is proud to sponsor Student Affairs NOW view the compute complete catalogue of education titles at routledge.com/education. And Huron is a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice by creating sound strategies, optimizing operations, accelerating digital transformation, and empowering businesses and their people to own their future. By embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo Huron on create sustainable results for the organizations they serve. As always, a huge shout out to Natalie Ambrosey who does all the behind the scenes work to make all four of us look and sound good. And we love the support of these conversations from our community. And that is you. You can help us reach even more folks by subscribing to the podcast on YouTube and our weekly newsletter, where you’ll learn about each new episode every morning on Wednesdays. If you’re so inclined, you can also leave us a five star review. It really helps us reach a broader audience. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guests today. And to everyone who’s watching and listening. Make it a great week. Thank you all.

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