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The retention of students is a challenge faced by many universities in countries where participation rates are high. Living learning communities (LLCs) have been adopted by college administrators to increase retention, even though evidence of their effectiveness is largely anecdotal. This paper uses propensity score matching to address selection bias and identify the causal effect of an LLC program on GPA and retention. Survival analysis (of the matched sample) is used to estimate retention over time. Results suggest that the LLC program has a positive and lasting effect on retention and a positive impact on GPA in the earlier college years.

In this article, the authors describe a simple classroom game that demonstrates the advantage of tradable emissions permits in regulating environmental pollution. Students take on the role of polluters who must consider the costs of complying with a uniform reduction and a tradable permits program. The class is divided into high-cost polluters and low-cost polluters so students can observe the gains from trade as high-cost students purchase pollution rights from the low-cost students in the tradable permits scenario. A major advantage of the game is that it can be conducted within as little as 20 minutes and does not require that students have prior knowledge of economics or regulatory policies. This makes the game appropriate for economics and noneconomics courses alike.

This paper is a discussion of a team-taught interdisciplinary course that was designed to provide cohesion between the 12 departments that participate in the environmental studies major at Salisbury University. This course provides a model for addressing several positive and negative tendencies at work in interdisciplinary programs, and provides students with a first-hand experience in how multiple disciplines can work together to provide a more developed picture of a particular field or interest. This paper presents a discussion of the teaching experiences of faculty involved in the environmental studies course for two years. A framework for the development of such courses is included, as well as a discussion of the agreements and disagreements that can arise when students and faculty work within an interdisciplinary context. (Contains 5 notes.)

Introducing economics to undergraduates with courses that incorporate various elements of economic fields at an introductory level has the potential to increase the appeal of economics classes. The author provides a model for teaching such courses using an environmental economics class as an example. This approach incorporates introductory economics concepts into an interdisciplinary class that includes three disciplines focused on a central theme. In this course, called environmental perspectives, the economics section covered the principles of microeconomics, the fundamentals of environmental economics, and linked these applications to the topics covered in the ecology and philosophy sections of the class. A discussion of the methods for applying this model to other courses that include economics is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]