Jeannie Brown Leonard

The Role of Living-Learning Programs in Students' Perceptions of Intellectual Growth at Three Large Universities.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how livinglearning (L/L) program participation similarly and dissimilarly affects college students’ intellectual growth at three large public research universities. L/L programs have been introduced at large universities in order to create more intimate peer communities that help foster students’ learning and development, as well as help them to become more involved and integrated in campus life. However, research on L/L programs has been largely limited to single-institution studies with restricted generalizability. This multiple-campus study shows that L/L programs affect students’ intellectual growth differently at different institutions, and that the impact of L/L programs on students’ perceptions of their cognitive growth is less influential than on their perceived growth in liberal learning.

Transfer Student Engagement: Blurring of Social and Academic Engagement.

Transfer students are a distinct population. Their characteristics lead to a qualitatively different student experience. Drawing on interviews with a cross-sectional sample of transfer students at George Mason University (GMU), this study focused on the ways transfer students perceived their social and academic engagement, on the ways they engaged academically and socially at GMU, and on the ways in which their perceptions of engagement and their actual patterns of engagement affected their sense of belonging at GMU. Most notably, transfer students viewed social engagement in the context of family and community rather than college life. The findings have implications for how campuses support transfer students and question assumptions about some engagement theories.