Embedded Files
Joining us for the Sustainability Semester provides the opportunity to be part of a unified living and learning experience. Themes of sustainability, food systems, and freshwater resources permeate every part of this program: from your interactions with peers and professors, the housing, the courses, the field trips, farm work, to communal meals, and to the culture of the place. This experience is all-inclusive, all rolled into one, a true living-learning community!
Living and Learning at its best
Living and Learning at its best
Living-Learning Community Best Practice Model (Inkelas, Jessup-Anger, Benjamin, and Wawrzynski, 2018)
Leading experts in the field of learning communities developed the above model to demonstrate the essential pieces of an effective living-learning community. We are proud to note that you'll find strong elements of each pyramid "block" in the Sustainability Semester!
Students live together as a cohort in LEED Platinum-rated cottages.
They are in all five courses together.
Weekly check-ins are provided by faculty to ensure academic and personal success.
The students live in community with peers, and weekly Community Meetings are held to facilitate social health.
Students engage in meaningful projects - some guided by their own interests, and some in collaboration with our education team to serve local schoolchildren.
Weekly field trips expose students to professionals where we discover real-world examples of sustainability, as well as possible career paths.
Life together affords multiple daily opportunities to learn from each other - inside and outside of class time, inside and outside of buildings.
Coming Together at Rieth Village
Coming Together at Rieth Village
Going from a cohort of strangers to a thriving, supportive group of friends in 10 weeks doesn't happen by accident! We take an intentional approach to bringing the community together and keeping it healthy. Here's how...
Community Formation
Community Formation
In the early days of each Sustainability Semester it is a special time, and attention is given to getting to know each other. We engage in a handful of activities and discussions to help everyone understand each other - their needs, their preferences, their strengths, their pet peeves, etc. As we learn about the members of our community, we work together to craft our group norms. Those will help to determine the kind of culture that will emerge over the course of the summer. Think of it as team-building with greater depth as you will be functioning in a community.
Community Life Meetings
Community Life Meetings
At the beginning of each week in the Sustainability Semester, all the residents of Rieth Village come together for a community life meeting. The purpose of these meetings is essentially two-fold: to encourage and practice good communication (student-to-student and student-to-faculty), and to work at developing a better understanding of what sustainability means in both theory and practice...and of course have some fun!
Residence Life bulletin
Residence Life bulletin
Page updated
Report abuse