Clarke Residence Life aims to introduce themed floors in the 2025-2026 academic year. Living Learn Communities, as they are formally known, are opportunities for students to connect with other individuals who share similar interests or majors. These floors would be spaces for students to find a sense of belonging, engage with others, and have events that surround their theme. Additionally it should provide students the opportunity to connect with others that they may not have interacted with before, or on a level this intimate.
A place beyond sleeping: themed floors are coming to the dorms next year with the aim to create an inclusive and more engaging environment. Residence Life has four potential options for resident halls: Global Learning Community for cultural awareness and exchange, LGBTQIA2S+ and Allies, Academic Excellence for quiet, academic-focused individuals, and Upper Classmen Only for Junior and Senior status students. These themes have been provided in the housing forum sent out by Residents Life and students have the option to voice their opinion on which community sparks their interest, or students may suggest a theme of their own.
Callie Clark says that Living Learn Communities “give returning students the opportunity to select the type of living environment they want during these different stages of their college journey. A senior working on their capstone may not choose to live next to a freshman blasting music. This gives them ownership over their experience on campus”.
Catherine Smith has experienced these communities at her previous institution and says that they were very successful. "Anyone can live on a floor, so it gives the opportunity for anyone to participate in the community. For example, a Native American floor hosted a beading program where people were able to connect deeper than housing and brought together a sense of belonging to the community”.
Callie and Cat have discussed the idea of Living Learn Communities for a while now, “we have talked about it for years and just have never moved forward. We want to figure out what students want and how to make the living experience better for them” Clark said.
Implementing themed floors to the dorms is another step Clarke is making towards a more diverse and immersive campus. “Mary Francis Clarke had always been progressive with the times and what students wanted. There is a lot of change happening in higher education and at Clarke, so we thought about how to position ourselves as Residence Life to ensure students have flexible opportunities to build lives on campus that they are potentially craving and encourage involvement” Clark said.
According to Callie and Cat, these floors will still be separated and gender-based, but, for example, the Academic Excellence floor will have one wing be females and the other males. These wings are not yet set in stone, nor are the final plans for how the logistics will work. More specific details will be provided to students after the survey results are collected by Residence Life. By offering a floor such as the Global Learning Community, students will have the opportunity to engage with more cultural experiences (music, food, language, etc) for understanding diversity and learning. The hope is that these floors will translate to a broader involvement on campus and a better sense of belonging in the dorms.
“Living Learn Communities will make the dorms beyond a place for you to sleep, it’s a place where things will be thriving and exciting and respectful community experiences will emerge,” Clark said.
Fill out the housing form to give Residents Life a better picture of what you want next year’s dorms to look like. If you haven’t already, click this link to fill out the form.
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