Chapter 15: Advocating Equity and Community Through Residential Learning Programs

The origin of the learning community, in higher education in the US, began over a century ago. In contemporary higher education, living-learning communities (LLCs) have become a strategic way to foster student development, engagement, and success as well to advance key tenets of diversity and inclusion. Within this work, a historical narrative of the learning community is provided, in addition to a discussion of relative student development theory. Finally, this chapter positions diversity and inclusion as central to this educational intervention and frames the utility of this student engagement model within the Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel, a modern theory of student success and development.