College students spend the great majority of their time outside of the classroom. Many of the life lessons and skills that an undergraduate should develop during his college years must be learned during this vast amount of largely unstructured time. These lessons include: communication skills, conflict management, decision-making, relationship building, organizational skills, project management, stress management, tolerance, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and so much more. Learning communities have become a priority within the American higher education system to ensure that students have the opportunities to develop these critical skills during some of the most formative years of their lives.
This concept is not new. The residential learning college began centuries ago at Oxford and Cambridge universities in England, and Yale and Harvard later adopted it in the 20th century. Today the residential learning concept takes many different forms on campuses across the country. SigEp shares the same academic philosophy as these great institutions, as each of our brothers commits to working diligently toward his college diploma. Fostering a living-learning environment, fashioned after the residential learning concept, is one of the most critical ways Sigma Phi Epsilon can provide a meaningful experience to our brothers.
On March 13, 2023, West Virginia Delta at Davis and Elkins College became a fully accredited SigEp Learning Community (SLC). The chapter joins 86 other SigEp chapters nationwide that are fully accredited.
This was no small feat. SigEp Learning Communities are accredited through a rigorous application process to ensure the chapter is committed to the philosophies of the program. Once accredited, chapters are required to go through a biennial renewal process. The purpose of this exercise is to continually reflect and assess the current state of the chapter’s SigEp Learning Community programming, engagement of volunteers and university stakeholders, and physical space if applicable.