Developmental educators are often familiar with the benefits of learning communities and with the importance of incorporating research-based best practices into their developmental studies courses. Faculty may be less familiar with the educational applications based on the concepts of emotional intelligence (EI). Faculty at College of the Mainland created a learning community for incoming developmental freshman that incorporated the concepts of EI from the work of Golman along with principles from Chickering's (1991) "Seven Principles of Good Practice" and Boylan's (2002) "What Works: A Guide to Research-Based Best Practices in Developmental Education." Faculty found that the EI strategies provided a common language and a useful framework for planning instructional materials and activities.