June. We look forward to these conversations, because from them we discover a lot about learning communities on very different campuses.Without exception, wherever hardworking faculty, staff, and administrators organize learning communities and students come, the reward is gratifying and immediate: The student retention rate goes up, just as the literature predicts. Institutional attention then shifts to scaling-up the work. Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, co-directors of the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education (www.evergreen.edu/washcenter), lead its national learning-communities work and other curricular reform initiatives.Lardner has taught academic writing and composition for many years, and Malnarich has taught developmental education and sociology. Both currently teach in Evergreen's Evening and Weekend Studies Program.

Developmental learning community programs that are respectful of students' circumstances, supportive of their educational aims, and thoughtful about the purpose of education can be extremely effective in helping developmental students achieve their educational goals.

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