By Luke Araujo | Staff Writer
Brooks Flats expanded its residence hall into a full-building Business & Innovation Living-Learning Center (B&I LLC) for the fall semester.
Living-Learning Centers (LLCs) are described on Baylor’s website as “communities that are organized around specific academic programs.” Residents in these communities share similar classes and have access to academic services and programming provided in the communities. Baylor has six LLCs, with each one centered around a different academic pursuit.
Lauren Ross, program director of the B&I LLC, said the LLC began in 2009 as the Entrepreneurship LLC. In the fall 2017 semester, the name was changed to the Business & Innovation LLC to “better reflect the goals of the program.”
“The goal was to be more inclusive of everyone in the business school,” Ross said.
When the name changed in 2017, only two of the building’s floors were considered part of the B&I LLC. Following the submission of a written proposal by Ross, the B&I LLC now encompasses every floor in Brooks Flats.
“When I started this position a year ago, I thought about what it would look like for [Brooks Flats] to be a full-building LLC,” Ross said. “I worked together with my department and the business school to submit a proposal to Campus Living & Learning to make it a full-building LLC.”
The project proposal that led to the green light for Brooks Flats’ expansion detailed the LLC’s goals, which included guiding students in determining their major within the field of business and enhancing students’ educational and social experience.
Allen freshman Raine Gonzales said the B&I LLC has helped her network with other people with whom she shares common interests.
“It’s a great way to build a strong community of people who are passionate about business and being innovative,” Gonzales said.
According to the project proposal, almost 25% of current first-year students living on campus were pre-business majors at the time of its creation. Of these students, 372 incoming students selected the B&I LLC as their first choice for housing accommodations in the spring 2022 semester. Ross said this makes it the second most preferred community, just behind the Science & Health LLC.
“We did not have the availability to admit all our students because our program was small,” Ross said. “This year, we were able to admit a lot more students into our program who wanted to be a part of the LLC.”
Now that Brooks Flats is in its first year as a full-building LLC, Ross said the focus of the LLC’s operations will be on growing the quality and impact of what it offers.
“We have the staff we need to do quality programming,” Ross said. “Our goal now is to refine the programming we are doing and make sure it is beneficial to all our students.”
