Students hauling their belongings into U of S Residence Buildings.

Campus dorms came to life amid gusting winds Sept. 2 as hundreds of students lugged suitcases and small appliances into Voyageur Place residence for move-in day. After saying their goodbyes to their parents, students checked out their new digs and prepared for several months of late nights, hard drinking and video games.

But a handful of students living together in a newly-renovated area of Voyageur are planning something slightly different and entirely new to the University of Saskatchewan.

A group of 16 undergraduates have been selected to pilot a Living Learning Community, or LLC.

A Learning Community is a group of students who meet regularly to discuss a common interest and to share ideas with the guidance of upper-level mentors. They have been organized by the University Learning Centre for the past five years.

The LLC marks the first time a community will live together.

The common interest shared by the inaugural LLC is “Health and Sustainability.”

“With an excellent Learning Communities program underway already, moving into residence just makes sense.”

Residence coordinator Sarah Sotvedt said the community has brought together a mixed group of students to talk about past experiences and share ideas about being healthy and environmentally conscious. This year’s program was limited to just 16 students but Sotvedt expects many more LLC’s in the coming years, under a variety of interests.

“Students had to submit an application to the University Learning Centre and write a mini-essay on what health and sustainability meant to them and what they’d bring to the community,” Sotvedt said.

The first member of the community to arrive on campus was first-year student Chiedza Pasipanodya, who hails from Zimbabwe and arrived in Saskatoon just two weeks ago.

Pasipanodya has considered pursuing international relations and intends to explore the many aspects of sustainable living while at the university.

“Back home we are concerned with conserving water and energy but paper and other [items] are not recycled properly. I’ve been fascinated with how there are different coloured bins here for that sort of thing,” she said.

Simon Bigaouette is a second-year residence advisor and was hand-selected by staff to live alongside and look-out for the LLC. Bigaouette grew up in Quebec and spent time living in the U.S. He said that living with a group of like-minded students will help everyone stay motivated and engaged with their studies while transitioning to university life.

“Everybody here including me has a certain interest towards health and sustainability. So [that means] maintaining a positive lifestyle, being aware of the environment, recycling,” Bigaouette said.

The ULC’s Learning Communities have become increasingly sought-after in recent years, mostly with first-year students. Interests of the communities have run the gambit from “The Global Economy” to “The Human Mind” to “Storytelling as Teachings.”

Last year a Learning Community interested in sustainability tied together thousands of paper coffee cups in the Arts Tunnel to illustrate the volume of waste produced by campus that often goes unnoticed.

Learning Communities Program Coordinator Erin DeLathouwer said that most large universities in both Canada and the United States have begun using Learning Communities. At the U of S, they’re available to all undergraduates at no additional cost.

She said that adapting the Learning Communities to students living on campus has been an approach that has worked well for other universities and is the “next natural step for the U of S.”

We know that a lot of the times when students live on campus they don’t have the opportunity to really get to know the city.”

The Voyageur LLC plans to take up community service projects in Saskatoon, which they can then add to their resume, DeLathouwer said.

“We’re going to probably give it a few weeks, but I’m quite confident that we’re going to be expanding. With an excellent Learning Communities program underway already, moving into residence just makes sense.”

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Photo: Jireh Wong