The Faculty Factor: Developing Faculty Engagement with Living Learning Communities

Edited by Jennifer Eidum and Lara Lomicka

This edited collection examines how colleges and universities foster sustainable faculty involvement in living learning communities (LLCs). More specifically, chapter authors contemplate the question: Why do faculty in LLCs matter, now and in the future? We argue that faculty are an essential component of LLC success. This volume delivers evidence-based research, as well as practical examples and voices from the field, to guide and support faculty serving in different capacities in LLCs, to serve as a resource for student affairs practitioners collaborating with faculty in residential environments, and to offer guidance to administrators developing new and revising existing LLC programs.

Forthcoming Fall 2022

Cultivating Capstones: Designing High-Quality Culminating Experiences for Student Learning

Edited by Caroline J. Ketcham, Anthony G. Weaver, and Jessie L. Moore

Cultivating Capstones introduces higher education faculty and administrators to the landscape of capstone experiences, offers research-informed models that institutions could adapt for their own contextual goals, and suggests faculty development strategies to support implementation of high-quality student learning experiences. The edited collection draws primarily from multi-year, multi-institutional, and mixed-methods studies conducted by participants in the 2018-2020 Center for Engaged Learning research seminar on Capstone Experiences; this work is complemented by chapters by additional scholars focused on culminating experiences.

The collection is divided into three sections. Part one offers typographies of capstones, illustrating the diversity of experiences included in this high-impact practice while also identifying essential characteristics that contribute to high-quality culminating experiences for students. Part two shares specific culminating experiences (e.g., seminar courses in general education curricula, capstone experiences in the major, capstone research projects in a multi-campus early college program, capstone ePortfolios, etc.), with examples from multiple institutions and strategies for adapting them for readers’ own campus contexts. Part three offers research-informed strategies for professional development to support implementation of high-quality student learning experiences across a variety of campus contexts.

Key Practices for Fostering Engaged Learning: A Guide for Faculty and Staff

by Jessie L. Moore

Key Practices for Fostering Engaged Learning offers an accessible introduction to high-quality engaged learning and brief—but deep—dives into six key practices. By focusing on key practices across institutional contexts, not only outcomes and case studies, the book prepares readers to address high-impact practice challenges like scale, quality, equity, and integration. When the conversation about high-quality engaged learning focuses on key practices, individuals and institutions are better equipped to consider the human and financial resources necessary to scale-up access without compromising quality, to ensure equitable experiences for all student groups, and to facilitate students’ integration of their learning with their other higher education and lived experiences.