Learning Communities are an important part of the new educational initiatives at Queensborough Community College (QCC), CUNY, in Queens, New York. The college has a student body largely composed of underserved students (ex. students who are English language learners, the first in their family to attend college, employed full time, and often skills deficient). The LC is an important tool to address the needs of these students, specifically those in their first year, as it creates a shared learning environment or cohort in an otherwise diffuse college experience. The classes stay connected by coinciding on units of study, overlapping readings and class meetings, and most importantly, sharing assignments that build on work from both courses.

One example of a successful LC is “Global America,” a pairing of English 101 (English Composition 1) with Sociology 310 (Introduction to Sociology). The LC is designed around the theme of globalization, and is focused on developing students’ understanding of global cultures and the globalized economy through the development of two significant global competencies: writing and civic engagement. One important feature of this effort is a shared service learning assignment. For example, last semester students produced a pamphlet entitled “Cultural Must-Sees of Queens,” which was distributed to conference participants at the annual meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, which was held at QCC in October. The assignment was due in parts over a four week period, with different sections of the assignment counting towards the grade in either class. The assignment is high stakes not only because it counts for a part of the students’ grades, but also because the distributed document will be credited to the students.

The most successful LCs demonstrate how both disciplines represented in the LC are vital to full understanding of each discipline. They aren’t just interconnected—they are interdependent. This is what makes an LC work, as it replicates the models we use in our own research as academics.