ABSTRACT
The website for the school contains the following description of the campus: Buffalo State has one of the most diverse student bodies in the State University of New York (SUNY) system and has been called the flagship for diversity in the SUNY system. The authors begin with a diverse urban campus in the SUNY system. In addition, SUNY Buffalo State has also self-identified as a liberal arts college. Cronon wrote "liberally educated people have been liberated by their education to explore and fulfill the promise of their own highest talents". The Learning Community (LC) experience is a high-impact strategy for increasing student retention and facilitating student transition from high school to college. In writing their narratives the students were given a basic outline to ensure consistency of content and also to prompt them to include information on their extracurricular activities and achievements. Once a student submitted a narrative, the authors met to read and analyze them for emergent themes.
