Living, Learning Communities video with transcript

[background music]

Shane Smith: What we’re doing right now is we’re looking to try to revamp the Living Learning Communities that exist within the residence halls. One of the things we’re really focusing on is trying to introduce an academic component into those Living Learning Communities.

We think that this will help student success as students tend to succeed in Living Learning Communities that have an academic component because it ties together social, emotional, and academic lives at the university.

I got involved with this group mainly due through my work on the Department of Residence Life. I also was an undergraduate student here at the University of Maine. I also lived in a Living Learning Community. I had firsthand experience in seeing the impact of it on my own experience here as a student.

I think ultimately the impact it will have at large is it will hopefully help retention at the university. It’ll help keep students on campus and give them that footing to get their careers that the university started on a good note.