Collins Living-Learning Center

Lara Kriegel, Professor of History and English, stepped into the Directorship of the Collins Living-Learning Center on July 1, 2020. At that time, the face-to-face living and learning that are hallmarks of the Collins experience seemed a distant dream.  In collaboration with the LLC staff, she helped to steer the Collins Living-Learning Center through a number of challenges and milestones.  Lara’s first year, 2020-2021, was marked Zoom programming until the late spring, when students and staff could finally meet face to face at Collinsfest and at the Publications Party.  Her second year, 2021-2022, saw the LLC move to the Foster Quadrangle and create a temporary coffeehouse and Cheshire Café.  In 2022-2023, the LLC returned to its renovated home at 10^th and Woodlawn.  This year also marked the inception of our ACT Humanities Program (Action + Community + Thought), a partnership with the Gayle Karch Cook Center for Public Arts and Humanities. Kriegel was pleased to be a part of ACT’s development: it is now a valued program within the LLC, along with SustainCollins, which is steered through the Integrated Program in the Environment and SustainIU.  In 2023-2024, through a productive dialogue with the College, Lara worked to reaffirmed Collins’s commitment to a student-run curriculum, with seminars chosen by the Board of Educational Programming and with valued experiential courses of long standing. Her initially contracted four years as director came to a close on June 30, 2024.  Lara looks forward to stepping away for a sabbatical semester, while remaining involved with Collins for years to come.

 

Of her time as Director, Lara reflects, “Over these four busy years, Collins has become another home for me. Collins’s traditions have provided continuity amidst challenges and changes. But even more importantly, the community itself, along with its partners, has offered friendship and fellowship. It has been a privilege to work with talented and unique students and to meet dedicated and accomplished alums. I will long remain grateful to my friends and colleagues, Yara Clüver, Leigh Suggs, Lindsay Brown, and Heather Holmes, who have comprised our core staff, as well as to many partners in Residence Life.”

 

Lara is pleased to pass the director’s baton back to her friend and colleague Carl Ipsen.  Ipsen formerly served as Collins LLC Director from 2011 to 2018, and will step in as Interim Director for 2024-2025.