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| Learning Communities:
An Overview By Ashley Williams |
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Introduction During the past decade, the term "learning community" has come to be widely used in higher education. Across the country, at small private colleges, research one universities, community colleges and urban institutions alike, Learning Communities (LCs) have emerged as a significant curricular option. Various models, including residential, virtual, and Freshman Interest Groups (FIGs), constitute a "growth industry," particularly in general education curricula. This development has led to regional and national conferences and the creation of a clearinghouse for the exchange and dissemination of information at the National Learning Communities Project (http://www.evergreen.edu/user/washcntr/natlc/NLCPhomepage.html), co-directed by Jean MacGregor and Barbara Leigh Smith and funded in part by a grant from Pew Charitable Trusts, located at the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education (http://www.evergreen.edu/user/washcntr/natlc/NLCPhomepage.html). At George Mason University, we have a rich history of learning community initiatives, reaching back for more than a decade and including programs launched prior to a widespread awareness on this campus of the term "learning community." These pedagogical and curricular innovations include BA/SIC (B.A./B.S., Integrated Curriculum, a general education cluster course program from 1987-89) and also a linked course component of a core curriculum pilot (1990-2). Current LC programs at George Mason University include the Integrative Studies program of New Century College (NCC -- http://www.ncc.gmu.edu/), the Mason Topics Program of linked courses (The Mason Topics Program -- http://links.gmu.edu/) and the Honors Program in General Education (Honors -- http://www.gmu.edu/catalog/cas_honors.html). Given these developments, a number of questions arise for consideration. First, what does what does the term "learning community" mean today? How are various models of LC programs structured, at George Mason University and elsewhere? What factors have contributed to this movement, both nationally and locally? What is the history of learning community initiatives at George Mason? Because what has been called "the learning community movement" continues to grow, with new programs emerging each year, it is impossible to say definitively what impact of this new technology of teaching is making nationally. However, what outcomes are indicated at this time, locally and nationally? This article represents an attempt to provide some answers to these questions in the context of a general overview of the learning community movement across the country and on this campus. While I include a brief summary of student outcomes and assessment results, a full discussion of this important issue is beyond the scope of this writing. Definitions and Models The term "learning community" lacks a discrete and uniform definition, and the meaning of the term continues to evolve as new programs and approaches are created. Early in the LC movement, Gabelnick, et al, offered this definition: "[O]ne of a variety of curricular structures that link together several existing courses — or actually restructure the curricular material entirely — so that students have opportunities for deeper understanding of and integration of the material they are learning, and more interaction with one another and their teachers as fellow participants in the learning enterprise" (Gabelnick, MacGregor, Matthews, & Smith, 1990, p. 19). Nancy S. Shapiro, founding director of the College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland (http://www.scholars.umd.edu/), and Jodi H. Levine, director of First Year Programs at Temple University (http://www.temple.edu/lc/), describe learning communities as "curricular structures that allow faculty to teach, and students to learn in more interdisciplinary, intellectually stimulating, and challenging ways" (1999, p. 4). Learning communities, they believe, are characterized by organizing students and faculty into smaller units or communities; creating curricular integration; facilitating formation of academic and social structures that provide students with support; socializing students into academic culture; providing faculty a means for collaborating across departmental lines; emphasizing learning outcomes; constituting a venue for institutional support programs such as tutoring and academic advisement; and focusing attention on the freshman year experience (1999, pp.3-6). In addition, learning communities often involve active and collaborative learning, increased attention to writing instruction and writing as a tool of learning, student self-reflection and self-evaluation, greater curricular coherence, and a shifting of faculty roles to emphasize facilitation and mentorship. Many learning communities incorporate experiential learning. At some institutions, learning communities emphasize leadership opportunities and exploration of career opportunities (see, for example, Iowa State University's Learning Communities -- http://www.iastate.edu/~learncommunity/). It should be noted that while a majority of LC initiatives have been directed at freshmen, increasingly these programs are expanding their offerings to students beyond the first year. The Five Models Gabelnick, et al, (1990), identified five models of learning communities:
In the first two models, faculty teach individual courses but typically engage in some joint planning and assist students in finding connections between or among the content of courses. Generally instructors design at least one joint assignment. Clustered courses (usually three but sometimes four courses) are connected by a common theme. FIGS involve a group of students who are enrolled together in two or three courses. This model does not require faculty teaching these courses to collaborate and plan jointly; rather, the learning community is created by the shared experience of students who form a cohort of learners. Frequently, the mutually enrolled students are also involved together in a weekly seminar or freshman success course. Closely related to this approach is the federated learning communities model in which a faculty member accompanies students to classes as a "master learner" and facilitates a weekly seminar to help students grasp key concepts and make connections between and among courses. In contrast to the models above, the coordinated studies model (exemplified by New Century College LCs) requires extensive faculty collaboration and team teaching in order to achieve integration of course ideas and content across the curriculum. Students enrolled in coordinated studies LCs are generally expected to reflect on their whole learning experience and to identify key questions, connections, and oppositions across a range of texts, discussions, and classes, etc. Currents and Causes Nationally, a number of factors are cited as contributing to the development of the learning community movement (see, for example, "Introduction: Why learning communities" in Shapiro & Levine, 1999). Among the motivating factors frequently noted by faculty who teach in learning communities are the desire to create a sense of community among students, to foster greater curricular coherence, and to stimulate active learning. Concerns about connecting and retaining freshmen have been highly significant; so, too, have been concerns about the need to assist today's highly diverse student population in making the transition from "the kid culture" to academic culture. In addition, the assessment/outcomes movement has stimulated general concern about creating successful learning environments; developments in cognitive science and a greater understanding of learning environments have also added impetus to pedagogical reform (see, for example, Lave & Wenger, 1991, on learning by doing and learning from others). While various critiques of American higher education have contributed to an awareness of the need to revise teaching and learning environments, three reports have been especially influential in learning community growth. The first of these is Ernest Boyer's College: The Undergraduate Experience in America, (1987), especially in its call for connected learning. Six years later after Boyer's work, Alexander Astin published his comprehensive review of research on the college experience, What matters in college: Four critical years revisited (1993b), highlighting, among other pertinent issues, research on the social dimensions of learning (student-student and student-faculty). Of particular significance is Astin's finding that, "The single most powerful source of influence on the undergraduate student's academic and personal development is the peer group." He emphasizes that the amount of peer-interaction "has far-reaching effects on nearly all areas of student learning and development." (1993a, p. 7). The reality that critical thinking skills develop most as a result of student-to-student interaction makes creating learning environments in which students collaborate meaningfully with each other all the more important. A third highly influential report was the Wingspread Group's An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education (1993) which called for putting student learning at the center of the academic enterprise and for encouraging meaningful civic participation. In addition, the work of Art Chickering has been important in the development of LC initiatives (see, for example, Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education, 1987, and Education and Identity, 2nd ed., 1993). Here at George Mason, where he was a faculty member in the Graduate School of Education, Chickering encouraged integration of student and academic affairs and advocated including experiential learning with classroom study (J. O'Connor, personal communication). Some LC programs respond to calls for new workplace abilities emphasizing interdisciplinarity, technology, and the social interaction skills which will be required for working in teams to integrate information and ideas from various fields of knowledge. The report of the Boyer Commission on educating undergraduates in the research university, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities (1998), sponsored by The Carnegie Foundation, makes interdisciplinarity a major theme. This study notes that while higher education is organized by disciplinary boundaries, students need training in multiple perspectives for their career and work lives. Creating Learning Communities at GMU: Institutional Climate Along with concerns which helped spark the creation of LCs elsewhere, three local factors seem to have contributed significantly to curricular and pedagogical innovation at George Mason, each of them related in some way to the University's relative youth. The first factor is an institutional culture fostering interdisciplinarity. This climate has existed here in large measure because of:
A second influential factor was the nature of funding — i.e., funding for special initiatives — in a young institution with limited resources. A third factor has been commitment to creativity and innovation in teaching and learning on the part of a number of faculty. Perhaps the most influential of these factors has been the University's focus on interdisciplinarity and collaborative work — "both for faculty and for students," says Paula Lewis (Foreign Languages), a former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Prof. Lewis points to the tradition of interdisciplinary programs in the College as spaces where faculty and students "approach the (post) modern world in a complex and multi-faceted manner" (personal communication). The Precursors Before describing specific George Mason learning community initiatives, it is important to acknowledge two developments in the late 1970s and early 80s, the creation of a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC -- http://www.gmu.edu/departments/wac/wacwelcome.htm) program and the Plan for Alternative General Education (PAGE), which set precedents for faculty development and curricular innovation and contributed to the later creation of learning communities. Both strengthened faculty commitment to teaching/learning and served as means of cross-departmental cooperation and collaboration. Significantly, both initiatives were funded by grants from the Funds for Excellence program of the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).From 1978-80, one grant funded faculty workshops in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), early in the national WAC movement. The success of the WAC grant led to the creation of the PAGE proposal. From 1980-82, a second grant funded the creation of a general education alternative with the goal of "true interdisciplinarity", according to Chris Thaiss (English), first director of the PAGE program (personal communication). One result of the WAC workshops was that the curriculum of PAGE was "aggressively writing-centered," says Thaiss. PAGE faculty, drawn from departments throughout the College of Arts and Sciences, supported significant writing in all courses (personal communication). Although the PAGE approach included elements common to learning communities, courses were not directly specifically linked to each other and students were not required to integrate ideas across the curriculum. Today, however, with evolving definitions of learning communities, the Honors Program in General Education (http://www.gmu.edu/catalog/cas_honors.html), a successor to PAGE, may be categorized as an LC because it represents a deliberate restructuring of curriculum for a common cohort of students who sometimes meet as a whole; it creates a smaller community within the larger community of the institution; it incorporates a capstone experience and provides a setting for academic services (for example, Writing Center tutorials and academic advisement). WAC and PAGE are important to an understanding of the robust tradition of teaching and learning initiatives because they encouraged faculty to act as change agents, not merely for writing issues, but for pedagogical innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration. Not surprisingly, many of the same faculty have been involved in creating other interdisciplinary programs, ranging from subsequent LC programs to American Studies, Women's Studies, African American Studies, and Cultural Studies. Two Early LC Versions: BA/SIC and Core Although there was little or no awareness of the term "learning community" at George Mason in 1987, a group of faculty launched what would later be described as the first LC initiative that year. Again, Funds for Excellence monies from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia helped support innovation in teaching and learning through the creation of BA/SIC (BA/BS, Integrated Curriculum), a general education cluster course program. Evans Mandes (Institute of the Arts), who co-directed the program, recalls the purpose of BA/SIC was "to foster a sense of intellectual inter-relatedness and social interaction" among students and faculty (personal communication). In its two-year existence, BA/SIC offered two-, three-, and even one four-course cluster for first- and second-year students. One of the lessons of this initiative, reports Rosemary Jann (English), who directed the program in its second year, was the importance of ample faculty planning and coordination (personal communication). BA/SIC gave way for the planning of a pilot of a Core curriculum launched in 1990. A feature of the Core initiative was a linkage between a first-year composition course (FYC) and an interdisciplinary Western culture course. Faculty teams teaching these two courses collaborated in planning and designing several joint assignments. Funded in part by a grant from the Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE), these teams included faculty from George Mason and Northern Virginia Community College, where the linked courses were also offered. As with the cluster course arrangement which preceded it, the linked experience of the Core pilot taught faculty the need for adequate planning time and the importance of communication and collaboration. While some curricular innovations came and went at George Mason during this period, for example, BA/SIC and the Core pilot, I suggest that each of these initiatives contributed in several ways to institutional readiness for the creation of sustainable LC programs. First, these developments contributed to the climate of change and dynamism necessary to nourish innovation. Secondly, each endeavor educated at least some faculty and administrators in the need for extending "up front" planning time for collaborative efforts. Thirdly, these initiatives helped individual faculty to develop networks of relationships with colleagues beyond their departments, to develop experience in cross-disciplinary collaboration, and, in some cases, to develop strategies for dealing with the changed classroom dynamics created by cohort programs. The Mason Topics Program The Mason Topics Program (formerly the Linked Courses Program) began in 1992 when the Core curriculum pilot ended. A small group of faculty who had been involved in the Core link between composition and a Western Culture course valued the connected learning they believed was taking place and, with support from the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, launched a new learning community initiative. For the first several years of the new program, 8-10 links, each of which included English 101, were offered to new students. George Mason's Linked Courses thus mirrored what has become the major pattern of linked courses. Because first-year composition courses are often the smallest classes freshmen take, especially in public universities and research institutions, administrators and faculty have sought to connect writing courses to large lecture classes in order to promote a sense of community among students enrolled in both courses. By 1995, Linked Courses had expanded to include some 3-course linkages, such as an English-philosophy-government link and the FYC-sociology-UNIV 100 community service link described by Ruth Fischer (English) in "The Community Service Link: A Response to the Ten Principles of Learning" in this publication, October 1999. In a different kind of linkage, students enrolled an FYC — introductory psychology link were mentored via email by third and fourth year psychology majors. Like the cluster courses (BA/SIC) in the late 80s, the Linked Course program began at a time when there was limited awareness at George Mason of the learning community paradigm nationally. Terry Zawacki (English), former director of Links, reports that becoming aware of the LC movement nationally helped her conceptualize the kind of faculty development needed in order for connections between courses to be more fully realized (personal communication). For a fuller discussion of how some linked courses relate as well as a description of the writing environment of those links, see Zawacki and Williams, forthcoming. By fall semester 2000, the program had grown to include 28 links, involving 532 students and 33 faculty. The newest additions to linked offerings are four sequences of thematically linked courses — "The American Experience," (http://links.gmu.edu/topics/american.html) "Ancient Studies/Modern Frames," (http://links.gmu.edu/topics/ancient.html) "Global Village,"(http://links.gmu.edu/topics/global.html) and "The Information Society" (http://links.gmu.edu/topics/information.html) — which bring interested students together throughout their freshman and sophomore courses. Students in a sequence usually take two classes together each semester for two years and may elect to live on special Living/Learning Floors in the residence halls. The genesis of this new development, according to Teresa Michals, was student and faculty desire to extend the learning community formed in one-semester links and frustration with the stop-and-go nature of much general education, "which often results in students feeling intellectually fragmented." She also notes that the College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland has served as a model for the new Linked sequences (personal communication). New Century College: Coordinated Studies Model The most extensive and intricate LC program at George Mason University, New Century College, began in response to the State Council of Higher Education's call for curriculum for the 21st Century. Initially called "Zero-Based Curriculum" because interested faculty and administrators were willing to attempt to re-imagine baccalaureate education "from the ground up," this initiative became New Century College (NCC) and admitted its first cohort of freshmen in 1995. Today, New Century is home to several degree programs, each emphasizing active and/or experiential learning, and all courses in the Integrative Studies program are structured on the coordinated studies learning community model. NCC Integrative Studies students who enter as freshmen enroll in Division I, general education, consisting of four integrated, interdisciplinary LCs, each lasting approximately seven weeks and carrying eight semester hours of credit. Each course is team-taught by faculty drawn from various disciplines who collaborate extensively in planning and in teaching. Fall semester courses are "Community of Learners" (integrating FYC, communication, information technology, and quantitative reasoning,) and "The Natural World" (natural science, quantitative reasoning, and communication). Spring semester courses are "The Social World" (social science, arts, and humanities) and "Self as Citizen" (social science, literature, and arts). Each course is inquiry based, writing intensive, and incorporates Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC). Students meet in various sized groups, from study groups of 4-6 members to the entire cohort; however, the most important configuration is the seminar (approximately 22 students and an instructor, generally meeting 3-4 times per week). Students are expected to connect and integrate their experiences across these four courses in two major ways:
After the first year, students take a combination of upper division learning communities (typically taught by two or more faculty) and courses from other departments in the University. With the careful assistance of faculty advisors, Integrative Studies students craft interdisciplinary concentrations. Completion of 12 credits of experiential learning is required for graduation. A number of upper division LCs include experiential learning components; students may also fulfill this requirement through study abroad, service learning, independent research or internships. Candidates for graduation in Integrative Studies take a senior capstone course and construct extensive portfolios of their work in nine competency areas, accompanied by self-assessment, for faculty review. They also present senior expositions to an audience of faculty and peers. In 2000, New Century became a part of the College of Arts and Sciences. The Upper Levels After the first year, students take a combination of upper division learning communities (typically taught by two or more faculty) and courses from other departments in the University. With the careful assistance of faculty advisors, Integrative Studies students craft interdisciplinary concentrations. Completion of 12 credits of experiential learning is required for graduation. A number of upper division LCs include experiential learning components; students may also fulfill this requirement through study abroad, service learning, independent research or internships. Candidates for graduation in Integrative Studies take a senior capstone course and construct extensive portfolios of their work in nine competency areas, accompanied by self-assessment, for faculty review. They also present senior expositions to an audience of faculty and peers. In 2000, New Century became a part of the College of Arts and Sciences. At the time of its creation, NCC was distinctive nationally in combining an all-LC curriculum with competency- or ability-based learning, notes John O'Connor, founding dean and currently Visiting Scholar at the American Association of Higher Education (personal communication). Adapted in part from Alverno College, New Century's competencies now include critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, group-collaboration, valuing, effective citizenship, global awareness, aesthetic response, and information technology. Now in its sixth year, the LC curriculum of New Century College is still relatively new. However, some insights about its students are offered by Patricia Carretta, Director of University Career Services, and members of her staff who write that NCC seniors they have counseled possess "an unusual amount of experiential and career-related experience, and they are able to articulate its academic relevance." University Career Consultants describe these students as "self-motivated," "reflective," and in fact, "exceptional." Other staff members report enthusiastically on NCC students' skill sets, including technology-related skills (Carretta, personal communication). Faculty Challenges: The Need for Faculty Development Experience at George Mason and elsewhere makes clear the necessity of extensive and innovative faculty development in order to create and facilitate dynamic learning communities. The greater the degree of linkage and integration in the structure of the LC, the greater the need for a "marriage" of ideas and roles, particularly in models involving team-teaching. This commitment to partnership and shared authority often presents challenges for faculty socialized into a culture of individual autonomy. Sharing vision and authority requires trust, which in turn requires time and a willingness to learn from colleagues. (See Sharing Authority: Faculty Collaboration in the Classroom, A Roundtable in this publication, October, 1999). In several LC models (for example, linked courses and coordinated studies), successful collaboration and teaching generally require faculty to examine disciplinary knowledge, their own and others, in new ways. In the most common linked model, FYC faculty need at least a general familiarity with the content and objectives of a linked class (frequently a large lecture class) in order to design effective writing assignments. In some cases, this requirement may place a disproportionate burden on composition faculty who are often adjunct. If, however, the link is truly reciprocal, faculty in the other course must also gain insight into the content and processes of the writing course. One result, Terry Zawacki notes, of such a partnership is an increased commitment to and understanding of the teaching of writing by faculty from linked disciplines (see Zawacki & Williams, forthcoming). LCs often require faculty to learn new pedagogical strategies such as collaborative pedagogy and greater use of technology. Clearly, the stand-alone workshop approach to faculty development is not sufficient to prepare faculty to teach effectively in LCs. From 1996 -1999, the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) helped fund the National Learning Communities Dissemination Project of the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education. In the case study of nineteen LC programs which resulted, Geri & Kuehn (1999) observe that most institutions had under-invested in faculty development. In particular, they noted the "huge need for faculty planning time, and in particular a need for faculty members to reflect together, share ideas and address problems" (p. 199). In order to be successful, LC programs need extensive, sustained faculty development opportunities. Outcomes and Benefits: Students While it is impossible to overstate the importance of careful analysis of meaningful assessment of any learning experience, a developed discussion of student outcomes in LCs is impossible here. However, I would at least to point to the significant body of assessment information at various institutions indicating beneficial results of learning community experience in areas such as student to student interaction, student to faculty interaction, creation of community, retention, and critical thinking, among others. In commentary about assessment studies on LCs, Rafael Heller (1998) says that existing research "strongly endorses" learning communities, for example, because they foster greater student engagement, both academically and socially (p. 11). In a reflection on the analysis of 63 LC assessment studies dating from 1988-1999, Jeri Lindblad (2000) reports favorable student outcomes in such areas as retention and persistence, critical thinking, tolerance for multiple perspectives, and self-awareness and motivation while also noting the need for more studies, for example, on under-represented students. One of the most significant findings Jerri Lindblad reports is that LC students "increase in cognitive complexity at a faster rate than students in stand-alone classes or in nationally normed samples" (p. 26). The greatest gain LC students themselves report is in their ability to understand other points of view and engage in analysis and integration of ideas. The impact of student-to-student interaction identified by Astin (1993b) would seem to explain some or much of this perception. At George Mason, the Office of Institutional Assessment has completed various studies involving LC students. A 1996 study (published in In Focus, Vol. 1, No. 4), Retaining Students Enrolled in New Century College, PAGE, and Linked Courses: A One-Semester Report(http://assessment.gmu.edu/infv1_4.shtml) provides a "snapshot" of retention of first-year students from the first to second semester. Students in each of these three communities were retained at significantly greater rates than other first-year students. A subsequent study, again published in In Focus (1999), gathered information about curricular connections between and among Linked Courses. In this study, 67% of students agreed that links did help make curricular connections; 80% agreed that links promoted a sense of community, and 60% of students reported a closer relationship with faculty in linked courses than with faculty teaching their other courses (Fall 1998 Linked Courses Report: Results from Pre- to Post-Course Questionnaire -- http://assessment.gmu.edu/infv4_3.shtml). Outcomes and Benefits: Faculty and the Scholarship of Pedagogy As the brief look at assessment data above suggests, learning communities have generally been found to benefit students. One outcome of the LC experience for many students is the formation of new relationships with peers and faculty. Likewise, faculty often experience new ways of relating to students as collaborators and co-learners. In addition, one of the important outcomes of LC experiences at George Mason has been the creation of new relationships between faculty and staff and among faculty from different disciplines. In turn some of these collaborations have led to research and scholarship related to teaching. As the brief look at assessment data above suggests, learning communities have generally been found to benefit students. One outcome of the LC experience for many students is the formation of new relationships with peers and faculty. Likewise, faculty often experience new ways of relating to students as collaborators and co-learners. In addition, one of the important outcomes of LC experiences at George Mason has been the creation of new relationships between faculty and staff and among faculty from different disciplines. In turn some of these collaborations have led to research and scholarship related to teaching. As a result of Linked Course experience, for example, faculty from several disciplines have made presentations at a national Writing Across the Curriculum conference. In NCC, University librarian Jim Young has played an important role both as a member of the teaching team of a first year LC and in helping integrate information technology and research skills across the first-year curriculum. With Lesley Smith (NCC) and NCC student Rebecca Kelly, he has conducted research into how students acquire technology skills. Prof. Smith and Ms. Kelley presented a paper, "Assessing Information Technology: Separating Access from Competence," at the Assessment Conference of the American Association of Higher Education in June, 2000. Paula Gilbert (Foreign Languages) and Kim Eby (NCC), who have taught a learning community focusing on issues of violence and gender, are currently completing a textbook on that subject. They have also described their innovative work with undergraduate teaching assistants in their LC in this publication (1999). These examples represent only a few of the scholarly projects which have begun with LC collaboration, but they suggest the effect learning community involvement can have on the scholarship of pedagogy. Conclusion Clearly, learning communities are a significant trend in higher education today. For many students and faculty, the LC experience is meaningful and even transforming. Assessment information from across the country indicates that most faculty who participate find the experience strongly beneficial, even inspiring and rejuvenating (Lindblad, 2000). In e-mail discussions and hallway conversations at LC conferences, faculty often speak of having their lives as teachers changed permanently because of their experience. However, despite their effect as a potent force for curricular and pedagogical revision, LCs do not yet represent anything like a revolution in teaching and learning on a national scale. LC programs are in some ways fragile, requiring resources and effort on the part of faculty, staff, and administration. They also require a level of collaboration and commitment to teaching that is often not valued by reward systems in higher education. In addition, within the academy, there is sometimes profound resistance to interdisciplinarity and the integration of knowledge from multiple perspectives, even at the beginning of a new millennium. Despite these complexities, it seems clear that learning community approaches offer exciting possibilities and a significant return on investment and are well worth the institutional and individual efforts required. The concerns which created the need for different ways of teaching and learning have not disappeared from American campuses, and so LC initiatives will likely continue to expand, evolve, and benefit the institutions that launched them. At George Mason, our rich tradition of LC initiatives and pedagogical innovation constitute a valuable institutional resource. ENDNOTES 1. George Mason was founded in 1957 as a two year college of the University of Virginia, awarded its first baccalaureate degrees in 1968, and became a separate institution in 1972. 2. UNIV 100 is a freshman success course. 3. New Century College was among the nineteen programs included in the National Learning Communities FIPSE Dissemination Project. References
Ashley Taliaferro Williams, Visiting Assistant Professor of Integrative Studies, is a founding faculty member of New Century College (NCC). Before the creation of NCC, she taught in the English Department and in PAGE, BA/SIC, and the Core pilot. She was also a founding faculty member in the Linked Courses Program. Her interests include writing across the curriculum in interdisciplinary contexts and American literature, especially Appalachian literature, treating place and the environment. With Terry Zawacki, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum, she has written a chapter, "Is it Still WAC?: Writing within Interdisciplinary Learning Communities" for WAC For the New Millennium, ed. by Susan McLeod, Chris Thaiss, et al, forthcoming from NCTE Press (2001). |
