Save the date for our 24th ACLC Retreat:

Learning Communities

October 14-16, 2026

This year, we are looking forward to once again meeting in person at our annual retreat in West Hartford, CT. We hope to see you there! The 2026 retreat will take place from October 14, 2026 – October 16, 2026.

Thank you to everyone who made the 2025 retreat a success!

Save the date for the 2026 ACLC Retreat: October 14-16, 2026!

2025 Retreat Theme:

You Belong Here: The Language of Community

Our 2025 Retreat will focus on issues within Learning Communities that have affected members of our consortium, particularly as they relate to English Language Learners and international students. Learning Communities are a powerful tool to help these students find a place of belonging, a home in the institution, and help them survive and thrive.

Download the Retreat Agenda Here!

Keynote:

Thriving through Community: The ACLC at 25

Terry Novak, Ph.D.

Terry Novak has served on the leadership team of the ACLC for almost 25 years and has co-directed the ACLC for over a decade. An English professor at Johnson & Wales University, Terry has also taught in learning communities for 25 years, directing the program for many of those years. Along with her community of LC practitioners and colleagues, she has presented regularly on learning communities, including the blending of community service into a learning community. In a myriad of ways, community informs Terry’s life and work.

Twenty-five years ago the fledgling Atlantic Center for Learning Communities, steered by learning communities scholars and practitioners Anne Goodsell Love (now Anne Van Der Karr) and Roberta Matthews, held an afternoon event at Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts that would turn into an annual two-day curriculum planning retreat. Since that time many changes and challenges have visited the landscape of higher education: some borne out of budget trials, some borne out of a global pandemic, some borne out of the political atmosphere locally as well as globally. Through it all, one thing has remained constant: Community matters. How do we remain grounded through the many layers of our learning communities? How do we use the lessons of our past to inform the challenges of our present? How do we continue our work with courage so as to continue to form students of community and conviction? Join Terry Novak for a lively and passionate discussion at the 2025 ACLC Curriculum Planning Retreat keynote address!