Living Learning Communities at an Urban Hispanic-Serving Institution: Opportunities and challenges

10-10:50 a.m.

Location: Pollock B

Type: Informative/panel Facilitated dialogue

Audience: Living Learning Communities

Presenters: Pam Geddes and Veronica Rodriguez, Northeastern Illinois University

Living Learning communities (LLCs) have been touted as a high-impact practice and there are plenty of data that support such claim. However, the majority of LLCs that have contributed to the data are from traditional institutions that cater to a primarily white student body. In this proposed session, we will present information on a relatively new LLC program at an urban Hispanic-Serving Institution where the majority of our student body comes from underrepresented and marginalized populations (37% Latinx, 11% African American, 9% Asian), are first-generation college attendees, and are Pell Grant recipients. We will highlight how our LLC program explicitly embeds strategies to remove equity barriers that affect our student population and the opportunities and challenges that come with this work.