Mentor groups regularly invite faculty members, advisers and deans to dinner, and each month one of the mentor groups performs volunteer work in the community. The groups also travel together. Last fall, for example, ACE members visited the Chicago Board of Trade. Being involved helps students find out about themselves. The faculty have really noticed this about the students - the students aren't afraid to approach people in positions of authority.
Students learn best in an environment that builds on their strengths and individual characteristics.
The teachers are the guardians of knowledge but they do not treat the students as empty vessels into which they pour knowledge. Eric Gibbons, a residential assistant for the Engineering Learning Community, says students get to know one another before they take their first class, and because they have three common classes during their first semester, they see a lot of familiar faces in the classroom on that first day. Learning communities help students in their ability to study since they all cover the same materials. It's so much easier than having people of like interests scattered all over campus. You get to know each other at a higher level because you have social aspects in common as well.