Is There a Crisis in Learning Communities at the Community College?

9-9:50 a.m.

Location: Warhol A

Type: Interactive / Facilitated dialogue

Audience: Linked Courses, Coordinated Studies

Presenters: Robert Soza, David Finley, Dawn McKinley, Kate Midday, and James Allen, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Harper College, McHenry County College, College of DuPage

This panel proposal stems from a series of discussions about the state of transition and/or decline that we have observed in our Learning Community programs. At the community college, unlike our colleagues at residential colleges and universities, students are highly transitory, are often hyper-focused on career goals, or completely scatter-brained about their academic pathways. Also, our advising teams are often over-extended and under-resourced. We cannot readily capture a cohort of students and steer them into LCs.

Maybe most alarming, we are observing a decline in interest in the once very popular LCs that centered Humanities and Social Science courses coupled with General Education/Transfer requirements. This decline exists alongside irregular enrollment patterns in LCs with a STEM focus.

Needless to say, we spend a lot of time pouring over data, hand ringing, and wondering aloud if LCs have run their course? Are these pedagogical models for a student experience that is no longer a norm at the community college? Has the economics of higher education and the accompanying change in student focus and behavior eclipsed the well-documented benefits of LCs?

While we are "true believers" in the LC model and its educational benefits, we are also sometimes at a loss on how to ensure not just the mere survival of these programs, but their thriving (as both intellectual experiences for students and sustainable economic models for our institutions). It is our hope that this panel will serve as a gathering of those with the same questions and experiences, and this gathering will produce a critically generative discussions that begins to articulate a vital foundation for the future of LCs at the community college.