Three members of the President’s Residential Commons Committee — Jennifer Heidt, Bracken Killpack and Stephanie Hartford, all ’05 graduates — joined Dean Robert Hawkinson at the Kaneko Commons groundbreaking. Heidt and Hartford had been involved with the committee since the beginning of their freshman year.

Learning doesn’t stop when class ends. That’s the concept behind Kaneko Commons, the first of several planned living/learning campus communities that will transform how Willamette students learn. Scheduled to open in late 2006, Kaneko Commons, an extensive rebuild/remodel of the existing Tokyo International University site, will integrate residential living with cocurricular activities — opportunities to learn and grow outside the traditional classroom setting.

While relatively new to the Willamette campus, the concept of residential learning is firmly rooted in the history of schools such as Harvard and Yale in the 1930s, of Oxford and Cambridge in the 13th century and arguably as far back as the community of scholars who surrounded Socrates.

“Small residential colleges have always blurred the line between learning inside and outside of the classroom,” explains CLA Dean Carol Long. “Our goal is to create residential communities that enhance student learning and increase the opportunities for intentional and reflective living.”

Kaneko Commons, which will feature “graduated” housing choices from traditional dorm rooms to suites and apartments, will offer a wide range of cocurricular opportunities such as films, speakers, discussion groups, sports, service, recreational and social activities. “We can make campus life more interesting, challenging and exciting,” says Robert Hawkinson, dean of campus life. “Eventually all students will be affiliated with a commons. It will be their home for four years. Whether they choose to live in the commons, off campus, in a fraternity or sorority or go abroad at some point, they’ll still retain an affiliation and identification with their commons.”

A unique feature of Willamette’s learning commons model is the integration of live-in faculty and faculty associates. “We’re going to include a faculty member and his or her family living in or near the commons and make this person an integral part of the life of the commons,” says Hawkinson. “Other faculty will be associates or fellows of the commons who will participate in various activities, including dinners and the new first-year seminar.”

“Students will be a primary part of determining programming,” says Long. “They will have a strong say in what they want to do in their residences.” Each commons will have funds set aside for cocurricular learning and recreational opportunities, and students, with guidance from faculty and staff, will budget and allocate those funds.

Students will also have greater responsibility for governing their living-learning environment, including judicial boards to enforce standards of conduct. “We’re putting more responsibility on the students,” says Hawkinson. “We expect students to have a rich civic experience within the commons. Making decisions about their daily lives in a collective situation is the kind of cocurricular learning we’d like to see.”

The result, says Long, will be students better prepared to live well in the world. “Liberal arts education has always been about how to live with other people, how to be part of the world in a way that is nurturing for oneself and for others. The commons will provide more and different opportunities for our students to become fully engaged citizens.”