The Residential Learning Communities
International Clearinghouse
The Project
Bowling Green State University is sponsoring an international clearinghouse devoted
to collection and dissemination of information about residential learning communities.
For the purposes of this project, we define residential learning community as a residential
education unit in a college or university that is organized on the basis of an academic theme or
approach and is intended to integrate academic learning and community living. The unit may or
may not be degree granting and may involve collaboration with formal academic departments outside
the unit. It provides formal and/or informal, credit and/or noncredit learning opportunities
(courses, seminars, tutorials, firesides). Residential freshman year experience programs are
included in this definition. Participation is usually voluntary. Examples: Residential colleges
at Northwestern University; Collins LLC at Indiana University; Unit One at the University of
Illinois; Human Sexual and Gender Development LLC at SUNY-Stony Brook; Chapman Learning Community at Bowling Green State
University; Chadbourne Residential Community at the University of Wisconsin at Madison; The
College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland; and Residential First
Year Experiences like those at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Gettysburg College
The Invitation
If you are the director of such a residential learning community and would like your community
listed in the printed and online web directories, please complete the
online form.
More than 180 residential learning communities have already submitted this information to The Residential Learning Community International Registry.
Other Valuable Resources for Learning Communities
- The National Learning Communities Project at
The Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education
- The National Study of Living-Learning Programs - assessment data on the effectiveness of 34 living-learning programs across the country through student reports of their perceptions and behaviors
- A comprehensive bibliography covering learning communities
including a section on living/learning programs, compiled by Jodi Levine at Temple University from several
sources including Jean MacGregor at the Washington Center of Evergreen State College, Howard Schein
at the University of Illinois and David Schoem at the University of Michigan
- An annotated bibliography of living-learning communities by C. Ryan Akers and Merrily S. Dunn, Ph.D at The University of Georgia, November 2002
- A tab-delimited list of individuals who have indicated they are willing to serve as consultants regarding residential learning committee and living-learning programs is available Plain text Format or Excel Format or HTML Format. When you download pthis list you can load it into a spreadsheet program such as Excel for easiest viewing although you can also view the file with word processing program. This information is extracted from the individual program entries for the convenience of those seeking consultants.
/ For more infomation contact
Dr. Robert Midden /
Disclaimer