X. Cultivate a Sense of Community Research universities should foster a community of learners. Large universities must find ways to create a sense of place and to help students develop small communities within the larger whole. Diversities of many kinds characterize research universities, which must balance the needs of residential students and commuters, recent high school graduates and returning professionals, native-born and international students. There is more of everything--more students, more professors, more courses, more books in the library, more computers, more laboratories, more student activities. Clearly the complexity of these intellectual cities can give students the opportunity to create their own customized communities within, but that complexity can also be baffling and overwhelming to students, making them feel lonely, remote, and too anxious for optimal learning. A sense of community is an essential element in providing students a strong undergraduate education in a research university. Whereas graduate students may readily gravitate to disciplinary colleagues around common research interests, beginning undergraduates rarely arrive with common intellectual connections. The importance of a sense of personal identity within both large and small communities at the research university entered every discussion of the Boyer Commission. The campus must be a purposeful place of learning in which every student feels special connections. But that personal awareness of connections cannot occur unless there is a responsiveness to place and community. Therefore shared rituals play a powerful role in creating the larger university community in which the smaller, personalized communities of learners can coalesce. Whether the traditions are student convocations, pep rallies or football games, campus-wide celebrations, candlelight ceremonies, or graduation exercises, university-wide traditions feed the need for a connection with place, a unique campus character. These rituals create the aura for a community of learners comprising all members of the university linked by intellectual interests, community values, and interpersonal relations. Diversity as an Asset Racial and ethnic diversity is a critical element in building community values, although it is still usually perceived as a problem instead. The presence of international students and nationals of many kinds of backgrounds gives research universities a richness of texture unavailable in most American communities; the challenge facing universities is to make that texture a positive element in the lives of all students. Many extracurricular activities and clubs build on shared interests, sometimes ethnic, religious, or cultural, but sometimes totally race- and ethnicity-blind. Members of an orchestra, for example, care about and rely upon each other’s musicianship, not on similarities of background; members of a basketball or mathematics team, actors in a play, or journalists on the student newspaper want the best performers as their colleagues, regardless of ethnicity. Through experiences outside the classroom, students profit from different approaches to the same issues. The same is true within the classroom. Students enhance the texture of their learning by listening and interacting with faculty and students from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Faculty and graduate students become partners and guides for undergraduate study groups and project teams through collaborative learning. When students work in collaborative projects, they can benefit from the range of experiences and perspectives that different backgrounds provide. Diversity of backgrounds and approaches enriches the process of discovery, the ways of thinking about solving problems, the multiple modes of communicating ideas. Therefore a comfort level with difference, as well as flexibility to learn in various ways, must emanate from the institution. Linking Commuters and Residents Commuters and residential students alike need to know that they are needed and valued members of the community. Most research universities include large numbers of both commuter students and residents, yet club and community activities tend to be geared for the convenience of the residents and inconvenience of the commuters. Part of the experience of diversity involves the commingling of these two groups, whose experience outside the classroom may be very different. Commuters, who often stay on campus just long enough for their classes, should be drawn into more interaction with residential students, graduate students, and faculty, through collaborative learning situations, co-curricular activities, and shared rituals and celebrations. Recommendations: Research universities need to cultivate a sense of place through appropriate shared rituals that are attractive to the widest possible constituencies within the student population. The enriching experience of association with people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs must be a normal part of university life. Residence halls should nurture community spirit. Commuting students must be integrated into university life by making their participation easy and attractive. Collaborative study groups and project teams should be used as a means of creating customized communities for residential and commuting students. Common interests, such as that in maintaining the beauty of the campus setting or supporting charitable or service projects, should be cultivated by creating teams that build community as they work toward a shared goal. Major issues forums, multicultural arts programming, and other extracurricular sharing of ideas, opinions, and arts bring students together, particularly when groups or clubs sponsor or help sponsor the events. Campus programming, such as lectures and performing arts programs, taken as a whole, need to touch the interests of as many audiences as possible.

SIGNS OF CHANGE University Case Study Integrated Undergraduate-Faculty Development University University of South Carolina The Integrated Undergraduate-Faculty Development Program at the University of South Carolina includes funding for sending professors to conferences on pedagogy and for supporting curricular innovation; a mentoring program funded by a Lilly Foundation grant assists untenured junior faculty members by pairing them with experienced senior faculty.