This fall, some of the incoming freshmen living in Heritage Park Towers on the Boca campus might be drunks and drug users. This dorm will house FAU’s Living Learning Communities (LLC), in which students will know and live with 20 other students who have at least their major in common and possibly their social vices. So far, 160 students have signed up to be a part of these student communities.
A drug- and alcohol-free LLC, called the Healthy Owls Community, would have required students to commit to healthier lifestyles by abstaining from drugs, tobacco and alcohol use. But it was discontinued due to lack of interest. Of the 11 communities available, the Healthy Owls was the only one to require a substance-free commitment.
The LLCs are specifically tailored to students’ experience towards their majors. It is designed to give the “benefits of a small college on a larger scale,” according to Laura Pipe, Center for Learning and Student Success assistant director.
The communities that are successful every year are successful because of the faculty, who give their time for a small amount of money.
“I get about $3,000 a year,” says Richard Mangan, who works in the Criminal Justice LLC.
The faculty takes part in LLCs because of the students.
“I like working with the students and to see them be successful, watch them grow and blossom. I’m looking forward to seeing them next year in the nursing course I teach,” says professor Deborah Raines, who works in the nursing LLC.
The purpose of the LLCs is to keep students at FAU through their graduation. Not only do the faculty involved help the students along but they also teach an introductory course specific to their community, called SLS 1503.
“I spend more time on that one-credit course [SLS 1503] than any of my other three-credit courses. In this class they want them to write. You have to read what they write. It has to be a labor of love,” explains Mangan.
Elizabeth Kennedy, associate director of Academic Support Services, believes FAU has faculty who care.
“They care about the students and their adjustment to the university. It speaks highly of the faculty,” says Kennedy.
This year, there weren’t enough interested faculty members or students to make the Healthy Owls LLC work.
“[We couldn’t] package it and really make it viable,” says Laura Pipe.
However, FAU received a lot of interest in new communities like the FAU Globally Reshaping the Environment (FAU GREEN) LLC, the Promoting Education Action and Change Everywhere (PEACE) LLC and the First in the Family LLC — so much interest that these communities will be running in the fall.
Although the students may be free to take any substance by the communities’ standards, their teachers will take notice of their behavior. However, the faculty aren’t
acting as surrogate parents, they are acting like colleagues mentoring students in their professional field. This relationship keeps the students accountable.
“[Students] have to meet expectations like everyone else because if they don’t, who cares? Who knows?” says Deborah Raines. She and the other LLC faculty do.
