There’s nothing like the experience of preparing a home-cooked meal – the sizzle of ground beef browning, cumin and cayenne flavoring the air, a favorite bachata percolating in the background, as a cluster of cooks bump elbows from counter to stove.

It’s especially meaningful for a college student who at the end of the semester longs to cook beside grandma, the nuances of her empanada recipe imparted in a simple glance.

“Food really bonds people together,” says Erik Criollo ’23 (CLAS), ’25 MSW. “The fun part is having people make it themselves as they either learn how to cook or teach one of their friends.”

Granted, cooking classes aren’t the focus of UConn’s La Comunidad Intelectual (LCI) living/learning community.

But its empanada night last semester – which Criollo organized in the small kitchen at the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC) and during which the beats of salsa and reggaeton were drowned out by the chatter of students debating the level of spice in the meat – is just one way of building community.

“The empanadas were delicious and the whole experience was great,” Lilliana Moreno ’27 (BUS) says. “Just being able to talk with each other, being in the moment with each other, and making those memories. It was just so nice, and it was so fun.”

Moreno will be an LCI floor mentor in the fall, one of 49 mostly freshmen and sophomores who live together in the Peter J. Werth Residence Tower as part of the learning community that celebrated its 10th anniversary last academic year.

“I knew that I wanted to be in a place where I felt comfortable, where I felt welcomed,” Moreno says about her decision to join LCI last year as an incoming freshman. “I knew that with LCI I would be surrounded by people who are just like me.

“My parents always told me they came here to give us education because they were not able to have that in El Salvador,” she adds. “They told us to get involved, do things that you love, and try new things. My parents weren’t able to go to college, so for us it’s a big deal. They want us to succeed.”

‘Students say what they love about LCI is the community’

H. Kenny Nienhusser, an associate professor in the Neag School of Education, has seen two cohorts of students move through the program in the four years he’s served as faculty director, and says one of his primary responsibilities is offering a vision for LCI.

“I’m a firm believer that Latine students who come to UConn are able to succeed if they’re given the right supports,” he says. “LCI is part of those supports that allow them to be seen and heard, to know that they matter, that there are other students like them, that there are other faculty like them. Time and time again, students say what they love about LCI is the community they’re able to build.”

A decade ago, a trio of UConn faculty and staff members representing PRLACC, El Instituto, and Residential Life came together with First Year Programs and Learning Communities to form LCI as one of the first identity-based learning communities at the University, Nienhusser explains. That means nearly all the students in LCI identify as part of the Latine or Caribbean communities, even though their majors vary.

Students from or with familial roots in places including Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico have all been members, and all come with similar yet diverse backgrounds:

Parents who immigrated to the U.S. for more opportunities. Family members who might not have U.S. citizenship and struggle without health insurance, food benefits, or even a driver’s license. Students who are responsible for younger siblings or are relied upon as caretakers for older family members.

Teenagers who have jobs for more than spending money; they help support the family. Speaking Spanglish – that is, inserting Spanish words in an English conversation or vice versa, oftentimes unwittingly. Translating for others at doctor appointments, the bank, even the supermarket.

“It’s those mutual experiences that kind of create community,” Criollo, who is a graduate assistant with LCI, says. “Our shared experiences connect us, so even if someone is from a different town, you might say, ‘Wait a minute, you’re from Peru? I’m from Peru. We have the same heritage. We share the same cooking and values, and we all go to church on Sunday.’ And suddenly, that’s how you make a new friend.”

LCI comprises mostly first- and second-year UConn students, Nienhusser says, and is often the learning community with the largest percentage of first-generation college students. Last academic year, about 80% of members were the first in their family to attend college.

“As a first-generation student, I definitely feel a lot of pressure to do well and not let my parents down,” Moreno says. “It was definitely scary because you can’t ask your parents about their college experience: Was it difficult? Was it easy? They don’t have those answers, so you’re going in having to rely on only yourself.”

Easing the transition to college, young adulthood

In each of the four semesters students are in LCI, they are required to enroll in a one-credit class that meets weekly and, among other things, helps with the transition to college and young adulthood and provides time to learn about Latine and Caribbean communities and identities, Nienhusser says.

Understanding the complex University landscape can be challenging for some students, he adds, so LCI intentionally incorporates those supports in its classes.

What does it mean to withdraw from a class? What is pass/fail? What are office hours? How can one get a question answered if it can’t be asked in class?

You might not know the vocabulary of college unless we tell you. What does it mean to use the W Center? What does it mean to use the Q Center? You maybe wouldn’t even know there are resources like that out there. UConn is huge, and there are so many resources available it’s hard to navigate them all by yourself. It’s our job to teach students how to successfully maneuver campus because we don’t want them to fail. — Erik Criollo ’23 (CLAS), ’25 MSW

“You might not know the vocabulary of college unless we tell you,” Criollo says of some of those early lessons. “What does it mean to use the W Center? What does it mean to use the Q Center? You maybe wouldn’t even know there are resources like that out there. UConn is huge, and there are so many resources available it’s hard to navigate them all by yourself. It’s our job to teach students how to successfully maneuver campus because we don’t want them to fail.”

LCI has an academic mentor program for students with GPAs of lower than 2.5 or who might be on academic probation, Criollo says, explaining that students meet biweekly with their mentor, either a graduate assistant or the faculty director, for help on how to improve their grades and ensure they are doing well socioeconomically.

But Nienhusser notes, LCI members collectively maintain a 3.0 or better GPA.

Catherina Villafuerte, a Ph.D. student who works as a graduate assistant with LCI, says she focuses the third semester course on helping students understand their Latine and Caribbean identities, essentially, “understand that they have something to offer that contributes to the growth and support and uplifting of their communities.”

This oftentimes translates to service-learning projects with various area nonprofits, she explains, during which students also get the chance to work on their soft skills and build their resumes – a project that continues in the final semester as they prepare for life after LCI in graduate school, an internship, or the job market.

LCI gave Moreno the push to join the Central American Student Association and serve as its secretary, pledge the Lambda Theta Alpha Latin sorority, get involved with the Real Estate Society, and take advantage of PRLACC and UConn’s Academic Achievement Center.

“You can’t be out there partying,” Moreno says of the lessons she learned her freshman year. “You can’t be doing that because you want to succeed. You want to make your parents proud.”

Finding community and a place to breathe

Anne Gebelein, associate director of El Instituto, says LCI, PRLACC, and El Instituto collaborate closely to support Latine students at UConn. Latino Studies faculty members often visit LCI’s classes to offer career advice and students are encouraged to attend PRLACC events or join one of the many clubs that operate within the center’s walls.

“On their first day at UConn, our students find people who look like them, maybe have music interests like them, family connections like them, foods that connect them,” Nienhusser says. “But when they go to their classes, they might be the only Latine-identifying student or one of a very small number of BIPOC students. That can be intimidating.”

At the end of the day, though, they return to Werth and can breathe because they’re with a familiar community, he continues.

It’s a cycle he’s proud has spanned 10 years in Storrs and has been expanded with sister programs at UConn Stamford, which started last fall, and UConn Waterbury, which is set to open this fall. Both campuses are designated by the U.S. Department of Education as Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

Nienhusser praised the work of Dean of Students Fany Hannon, who previously served as director of PRLACC; Diana Rios, associate professor in the Department of Communication and with El Instituto; and Robert Yanez, who previously worked in Residential Life, as LCI’s co-founders who laid the foundation on which he’s been building.

But it’s Rios, Gebelein says, who deserves credit for simply having the idea to establish a learning community based on the Latine and Caribbean culture. She sought to cultivate at UConn the same sense of camaraderie she felt when she was a member of a Chicano-themed dormitory at UC Berkeley.

Ten years on, that camaraderie indeed exists.

“I got a beautiful email a couple weeks ago from a graduate who was a floor mentor when I started in the fall of 2020 during COVID,” Nienhusser says. “I supported him that year, and he was part of our legacy leadership program that’s done with Student Activities, where I served as his mentor. He got into medical school, and in this email told me about what his experience in LCI meant to him and how the support he received from me and what he saw me do for our learning community is something he’ll take with him.”

Nienhusser hopes LCI’s new banner, unveiled during an anniversary gala last spring and replacing one that featured a starburst with a map of Connecticut and the globe, can visually impart how he and others feel about LCI.

This logo represents what I’m constantly sharing in our learning community: When one of us falls, we all fall, and it’s important that we all go ahead and lift ourselves back up. — H. Kenny Nienhusser, an associate professor in the Neag School of Education

“We’re not about geography, we’re about community, care, diversity, inclusion, support, among many other things,” he says. “This logo represents what I’m constantly sharing in our learning community: When one of us falls, we all fall, and it’s important that we all go ahead and lift ourselves back up.”

That’s something Moreno says she hopes to impart as floor mentor to the newest LCI members when they move in later this summer.

“I want to make LCI a home because that’s what it felt like for me,” she says. “It was a home away from home. I want to be able to be there for them, and I want them to feel comfortable to come to me when they need to talk about any situation, any problems, or how they’re feeling. I want to be able to have those fun moments with them, but above all I don’t want them to feel scared. I want them to feel like, ‘I want to be here, and I feel like being here is a good environment and it’s going to help me.’”