Learning Communities and Assignment Process

In the first two years in Spokane is designed to enrich the educational experience for medical students by:

• Fostering inter-class connections and mentoring
• Providing multi-disciplinary and inter-professional perspectives on professional identity as they transition from student to physician
• Involving a community of mentors from various professional areas including business, nursing, pharmacy, engineering and law, as well as diverse personal experiences as a parent, patient, caretaker, volunteer and activist.
• Providing non-evaluative learning spaces in which students further discuss important curricular topics our community of mentors

The goal is for students to not only learn from each other, but also grow as a community of future physicians who support each other, invest themselves into the local community, and have an expansive network of mentors to help guide them throughout their medical career.

In the third year, the students transition to their clinical region and continue to be supported by a regional medical campus team that includes their regional dean, WSU faculty and preceptors, and administrative staff.

Assignment to a Learning Community

The Office of Student Experience makes initial learning community assignments. In April of the matriculation year, accepted applicants are asked to rank the four learning communities in order of preference. Students have the opportunity to provide a narrative explanation of factors they would like considered in assignment to a clinical campus. Once received, the rankings and narrative context are reviewed with the goal of placements based on clinical capacity in each region. The following drive initial placements:

1. Applicants with a documented reasonable accommodation due to a disability or modification due to pregnancy or related conditions tied to their need to be assigned to a particular region
   • Applicants can reach out to Dr. Ranna Nash at ranna.nash@wsu.edu, Disability Resource Professional in the College of Medicine, to discuss reasonable accommodations. Requests for reasonable accommodations occurring after clinical campus placements have been made may impact the ability to assign applicants to a preferred campus. Students are encouraged to connect with Dr. Ranna Nash as soon as possible.
2. Other campus preferences are considered, but do not guarantee placement at a preferred campus. Extenuating circumstances that may be considered in campus placement include major life circumstances; examples include:
   • Caretaking responsibilities
   • Significant event impacting a student
   • Significant safety risks (e.g., a student who has a protection order in place against a peer or community member)

Placements will not be made based on specialty interests or prior/ongoing volunteering or work experiences. Once placements are made for the above applicants, the remaining applicants are placed utilizing rankings with an attempt to place applicants in a higher ranked Learning Community whenever possible. Applicants with rankings and narrative explanations are considered first. Those who did not submit a narrative explanation are placed next and those without rankings or a narrative explanation are placed last into the remaining openings.

Learning community assignment is provided to accepted applicants before the April 30 national deadline to narrow MD acceptances to one MD medical school. Subsequent assignments decisions are made as follows:

• If any applicants from the first group met one or more of the extenuating circumstances above but were not assigned to their preferred learning community, they may be placed after shifting in the class occurs due to withdrawals.
• Waitlisted applicants accepted into the class (early May–June) are asked to provide their rankings and narrative context. These applicants are placed as a group in the open positions following the process above.
• Learning community assignments for the cohort are provided to the whole class and the regional deans in late June.
• Applicants accepted after June are placed in spots vacated by a withdrawn applicant.

Process for Requesting a Learning Community Change

Students may request to change learning communities by submitting the Learning Community Change Request Form.

The Learning Community Committee Meeting Dates

Committee meeting dates for Academic Year 2025–2026 are as follows:

• October 30, 2025
• March 23, 2026

Students must submit the Learning Community Change Request Form at least a week in advance of these meetings to be considered. Ad-hoc meetings for urgent situations are scheduled as needed.

Learning Community Change Request Form

The form asks the student to identify which campus they would like to switch to and any information pertaining to any of the following circumstances:

1. Applicants with a documented reasonable accommodation due to a disability or modification due to pregnancy or related conditions tied to their need to be assigned to a particular region
   • Applicants can reach out to Dr. Ranna Nash at ranna.nash@wsu.edu, Disability Resource Professional in the College of Medicine, to discuss reasonable accommodations. Requests for reasonable accommodations occurring after clinical campus placements have been made may impact the ability to assign applicants to a preferred campus. Students are encouraged to connect with Dr. Ranna Nash as soon as possible.
2. Other campus preferences are considered, but do not guarantee placement at a preferred campus. Extenuating circumstances that may be considered in campus placement include major life circumstances; examples include:
   • Caretaking responsibilities
   • Significant event impacting a student
   • Significant safety risks (e.g., a student who has a protection order in place against a peer or community member)

The Learning Community Committee meets during designated times each academic year to review requests and capacity for each learning community, including how leaves of absence impact capacity. The committee makes one of the following determinations for each request:

• Approval of the change with timeframe provided (e.g., start of new academic year, immediately, start of next Clinical Campus Week)
• Waitlisted: situation met one or more of the priorities; however, the change cannot be accommodated due to clinical capacity. Student remains on the waitlist until/if they can be accommodated at a later time.
• Denied: situation did not have an accommodation or extenuating circumstance warranting change

This outcome is communicated to the student by Student Affairs in the Office of Student Experience.

Placement Process Following a Leave of Absence or Readmission

The following procedures will be implemented on April 15, 2026 for all new LOAs or readmissions.

Per the Medical Student Leave, Withdrawal, and Readmission Policy:

Students are not guaranteed their prior regional medical campus location upon return from a voluntary or administrate leave of absence. The appropriate offices and regional medical campus teams will consult to understand the clinical capacity for the student’s campus and other regional medical campuses. If it is deemed that the student’s original clinical campus cannot accommodate the student upon return from a leave, the student will be assigned to another regional medical campus that has capacity.

In order to align student numbers with clinical capacity at each Learning Community (LC) site, the following process will be used to confirm or reassign students upon return from a leave of absence (LOA).

1. Upon approval of or placement of a student on an LOA, the student will provide an updated ranking of the four LCs including a narrative of whether they have an accommodation to be at a particular campus or have an extenuating circumstance (same as 3. a and b above).
   • For readmittance following dismissal, these rankings would be requested upon the approval of readmittance.
2. Student Affairs will confirm the rankings 120 days before anticipated return when reminding students of the process.
3. The Learning Community Committee will meet to:
   • Review clinical capacity and the anticipated LOA returns or approved readmittance
   • Review students’ LC rankings and circumstances
   • Determine whether the student can remain in their assigned LC or whether they will be required to shift to a different LC
     • Sequential priority given as follows:
       • Students with a documented reasonable accommodation due to a disability or modification due to a pregnancy or related conditions tied to their need to be assigned to a particular region
       • Students with extenuating circumstances
       • Students returning from LOA
       • Students on waitlist for LC
       • Students being readmitted
4. Students will be notified of their LC assignment at the time of their 90-day request to return from LOA.
   • Students may choose to delay re-entry based on LC placement; however, there will be no guarantees their requested LC will be available. Delaying reentry will also delayed progression to completion of the MD degree.
   • Notification to students following approval of readmittance about their LC will occur prior to re-enrollment.

If there is no capacity at any campus to accommodate a student returning from LOA, the student may be required to remain on LOA until they can be placed.

Learning Community Committee Members

• Vice Dean for Admissions, Student Affairs, and Alumni Engagement
• Vice Dean for Educational and Faculty Affairs
• Assistant Dean for Student Affairs
• Regional Dean – Everett
• Regional Dean – Spokane
• Regional Dean – Tri-Cities
• Regional Dean – Vancouver