The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2 - 75

Exploring the Effect of a Residential Partnership

dents than for non-LLC students. A 95% confidence interval for this odds ratio is (1.6742, 117.0733). Since there is only one observation in the cell for LLC unfavorable responses, the chi-square test may not be valid for this question because 25% of the cells have expected counts less than 5. Fisher’s exact test (which is used for small samples) gives p-value = 0.0031. The 95% confidence interval using the exact method is (1.7041, 631.9743).

increased satisfaction with the living environment, all of which are desired outcomes from academic administrators in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Since engineering and computer science is considered a rigorous and demanding program on campus, it makes sense that an environment conducive to these academic needs would create a level of satisfaction that other similar students might not find in traditional residence halls .

DISCUSSION
The extent to which this engineering and computer science living-learning program encourages student-faculty interaction is positive. It seems important that administrators nurture informal student encounters with faculty in order to facilitate more substantive contacts. Informal interactions could have been the precursor to the more substantive interactions that students experienced in this living-learning center. In addition, it appears that the living-learning center creates an environment where students work in groups to study or focus on academically related endeavors, creating the peer academic interaction that Light (2001) found vital to the student experience. Students in the living-learning center also reported higher levels of satisfaction with their overall living experiences. Since engineering and computer science is considered a rigorous and demanding program on campus, it makes sense that an environment conducive to these academic needs would create a level of satisfaction that other similar students might not find in traditional residence halls. The findings show increased academic peer interaction, increased student interaction with faculty, and

LIMITATIONS
While this study provides evidence that this living-learning initiative may be facilitating statistically significant gains in faculty-student interaction, peer academic interaction, and satisfaction with overall living experiences, generalizing the result to other campuses may not be appropriate. Living-learning programs are structured and organized differently from campus to campus, and it is not clear what constructs of this effort are facilitating the gains. Moreover, this study is limited by a sample of only 97 students who were studied on a single campus for one year. Since this study’s gender distribution is consistent with enrollment in engineering and computer science and since only 17% of respondents were female, the application of the results should be viewed with
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2