The success of learning communities in retaining students has been lauded by ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and backed by student praise and recent studies.

Learning communities are designed to enhance the educational experience of students, particularly first-year students, and increase retention rates. Iowa State boasts dozens of learning communities, and many of them are centered on the core classes of certain majors. Several communities even group members together in residence hall clusters.

According to a letter from Geoffroy published Jan. 11 in the Omaha World-Herald, learning communities are hitting their goals.

“Iowa State was one of the early adopters of this idea, and our experience has been extremely positive,” Geoffroy wrote in the letter. “We plan to build on this success to help more students to stay in school, graduate and add their enhanced knowledge and skills to the society at large.”

Communities range from 16 to 125 people, said Kurt Earnest, residence hall life coordinator.

The learning communities are designed to acquaint students with the university and their peers by having them dine with faculty, attend study groups and visit discipline-related job sites, Earnest said.

Another aim of the program is to increase the retention of students after their first year.

Ten percent more students stayed at Iowa State after a first-year experience with learning communities than students who were not involved in one, according to a study conducted by Douglas Epperson, professor of psychology.

The study was based on data from the 1998 and 1999 freshman classes and was the basis of Geoffroy’s letter to the Omaha World-Herald.

“The literature is pretty clear that if you provide social structures where students have an opportunity to meet other students with shared interests that you increase the likelihood that they’ll remain at the institution,” Earnest said.

Many learning communities in the residence halls have a peer mentor living near the students.

Miranda Mhango, an international student from Botswana, became a peer mentor for her cross-cultural learning community after a year as a member of the community.

“It made me feel more comfortable because I had more American friends right away,” said Mhango, senior in accounting. “It helped me adjust to Iowa State more quickly – more than people normally would.”

Mhango was optimistic about the future of the communities.

“I feel that if they have enough learning communities for everybody, it would be a nice campus,” she said.

The expansion of learning communities seems viable.

Earnest said learning communities are able to enhance the educational process because they emphasize learning both in and out of the classroom.

“A majority of the feedback from the students has been extremely positive,” he said.

There are still problems with the learning community system, said Dale Morris, freshman in pre-computer science. Morris said he wasn’t pleased with his first experiences in his computer science learning community.

“We’ve met as a group three times, and most of the people don’t show up, and they don’t seem to be helping as much as they said they would when we signed up for the program,” he said. “I thought that there would be more studying and working on classes together.”

Morris said he would still recommend students take advantage of learning communities.

“I do hope they continue it – it’s a good program as long as they work out the bugs,” he said.

See a copy of President Geoffroy’s letter to the Omaha World-Herald at http://www.iastate.edu/~learncommunity/.