Since 2011, Bridgewater State University (BSU) has received funds through the Massachusetts Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Initiative (MAICEI) to support students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to attend college. This BSU-MAICEI partnership, named EXCEL (Extraordinary Expectations for Career, Education and Life), offers up…

Living-learning communities combine curricular, co-curricular, and residential components of college life. They are a relatively new variation on the residential education that has been part of the undergraduate experience at America's independent colleges and universities for centuries. Research suggests that living-learning communities have a…

Honors administrators spend much of their time explaining and describing what honors is and does. When they talk about what honors looks like nationally, they should have answers to the following important questions: How pervasive is the model of separate honors facilities?; How pervasive are the legendary closets that honors programs have so…

The College of the Holy Cross offers a universal first-year program called Montserrat, in which first-year students participate in a living-learning experience anchored by a yearlong seminar course. The seminar courses are part of a thematic cluster of four to eight courses; students in the cluster live together in a common dormitory and…

Even in difficult economic times, colleges and universities continue to invest in residence hall construction projects as a way to attract new students and keep existing ones on campus. According to data from "American School & University"'s 20th annual Residence Hall Construction Report, the median new project completed in 2008 was…

Colleges and universities in the United States are currently in the midst of a debate on how to integrate students' academic and social lives in a manner similar to the centuries old model of Oxford and Cambridge. One of the major initiatives by colleges and universities is the re-establishment of residentially-based learning communities whose use…

Residence life programs play a key role in recruiting students, helping them make a successful transition to a new institution, and in retaining them, whether students are enrolling for the first time, transferring from another institution, or entering graduate school. Chapters in this book address theories of learning and development, new…