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Create an LLC

Living & Learning Communities (LLCs) are great ways to provide residential campus homes for students, clustered by major/minor/interdisciplinary interests, career aspirations, and/or concepts that support leadership and transition to college. Students living in an LLC will discover their neighbors share commonalities. Beyond residing together, our mission is to support a variety of opportunities for continued student success, academic engagement, and co-curricular involvement.

University of Tennessee LLCs feature Learning Partner Forums (LPFs). The forums are composed of University Housing academic initiatives staff, residence hall staff, and our sponsoring college/school/department/office’s liaison. The LPFs function as communication networks that facilitate dialogue between University Housing and our campus partners. We discuss the community, programming ideas and logistics, and identify ways of connecting residents with the greater campus neighborhood.

Who can create an LLC?
Academic colleges, schools, and departments as well as student-serving student life and administrative offices are welcome to create an LLC home. The first step would be to consider the desired goals, vision, and outcomes for your community. Who would it serve? What value would this community serve for our students? Who would be expected to serve as a liaison from your college/school/department/office?

What is an LLC liaison?
An LLC liaison is a designee whose responsibilities would include attendance at a monthly Learning Partners Forum (LPF) meeting, attendance at occasional LLC meetings during the year, selection of students for your specific LLC, arrange common courses in consultation with the Registrar, and is responsible for planning programs and activities for the LLC students in your community throughout the year.

What resources does University Housing offer?

Benefits for our partners include access to a budget to assist in supporting community-builders or programs for the students living in your LLC, a direct communication link with housing staff about your LLC, a direct link with a cluster of students who share an interest relevant to your college/department/office’s mission, and ability to connect with students who may display capabilities of talent for leadership, academic, and/or research engagement early on in their careers as students at the University of Tennessee.

University Housing collaborates with liaisons to ensure a true partnership. University Housing provides each of the liaisons with a programming budget for their LLC, blocks residence hall room space and manages assignments, provides the technical guidance for the system for which liaisons will use to select students, and collaborates with liaisons to execute programs and market their LLCs to incoming students. The Coordinator for Living and Learning Communities will also serve as a direct communication link with University Housing for each LLC liaison.

 

Creating an LLC for your college, department, or office is exciting, but there also may be many questions in terms of how it functions, expectations, time commitments, etc. We would be happy to walk you through the process of establishing and sustaining an LLC, which may provide insight into the application process. For an application and/or to arrange a meeting, please email housingllc@utk.edu.