Talking Stick - July/August 2018 - 26

ACADEMIC INITIATIVES

. . . THOUGH THE
COMMUNITIES ARE
OFTEN MADE UP
SOLELY OF RESIDENTS
WHO SHARE THAT
IDENTITY, ALLIES AND
OTHER INTERESTED
STUDENTS ARE ALSO
WELCOME.

Marketing is an important step to
keep communities full and on the
radar of prospective students.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

stakeholders from their sponsoring
entity as well as the RA and residential
life coordinator (professional staff).
Residential life staff are responsible for
community development, programming, and policy enforcement, while
the sponsoring entity is responsible for
providing academic support and leadership for community activities and for
evaluating whether goals are met. Partners at UC Irvine include the Chicano/
Latino Studies department and African
American Studies department.
At the University of Vermont the
residential education team works with
a special learning communities team
to develop identity-based LLCs. Faculty
develop the academic curriculum, and
students (called community student
leaders) work as unpaid volunteers to
propose and lead these communities.
As Kevin Wright, area coordinator for
residential life, explains, community
student leaders have the "responsibility to facilitate and execute programming that is designed to complement
their sub-community . . . as long as
it aligns with the mission of residential life." In addition to the faculty,
students, and staff who take the lead
on community building and program-

TALKING STICK

ming, there are RAs who conduct general programming and enforce policy.
Housing assignments can be
handled in a number of different
ways. The process at UC Riverside
is handled by the Housing Services
Office. Each year, approximately 30
spaces are available for each community in the Pentland Hills suite-style
residence hall. Residential life and
its campus partners aspire to double
the size of these communities in the
near future. At UC Irvine, sponsors of
the identity-based LLCs - located in
the Arroyo Vista housing community
where each community can house a
range of 16-32 residents - can choose
how involved they wish to be with the
assignments process. According to
Thais Bouchereau, associate director of
residential life, "Some sponsors are actively involved to the point where they
not only provide the names of students
interested in the theme, they also place
students in their room assignments
for the following year. Other sponsors choose to have a more laid back
approach where they are content with
receiving updates from our office on
assignments made." At the University
of Vermont, the learning communi-

ties team works with the administrative services team to assign spaces in
the Cultural Crossroads community,
which offers suite-style housing for
10-18 residents per community. As
Wright explains, "Students are given
an opportunity to state a preference for
which LLC they are interested in living
in, and then staff do their best to place
everyone in either their first, second,
or third choice."
Marketing is a crucial aspect of LLC
success, as both current and prospective students need to be aware of all
housing options available to them.
In the spring of 2017, UC Riverside
began to address concerns that interest
in the cultural LLCs was lower than
desired, which was attributed to lack
of effective marketing and outreach.
Residential life staff garnered feedback
from campus cultural centers, housing
services, and students about how to
improve LLC marketing, which now
includes offering descriptions on the
housing website, creating brochures,
and reaching out to prospective
residents in emails and phone calls.
LLC marketing at UC Irvine includes
descriptions on the housing website,
direct sponsor communication with

Talking Stick - July/August 2018

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