Imagine you are a first year. You have just been accepted to the University and it is now time to pick your housing. While many students might find themselves struggling to pick between Alderman and McCormick, the University offers alternative choices: residential colleges.
Brown, Hereford and the International Residential College as well as the language houses make up the residential colleges offered at the University. The first three are open to first years and upperclassmen who submit a separate application to live in these dorms.
According to Focused Communities area coordinator Becky Starkenburg, the residential colleges at the University are modeled from Jefferson's intention for the Lawn as well as based on an Oxford model.
"When Jefferson built the Lawn, his intention was that students and faculty would live together in the living-learning community," Starkenburg said. The Oxford model gives students "the freedom and the availability in their living space to have dialogue in various issues."
With this foundation, Brown, Hereford and the IRC have grown to focus on different community issues.
"Brown is constructed around issues like creativity and passion," Starkenburg said.
Brown Senior Resident Dan Bryant, a third-year College student, just moved into Brown this fall after hearing about the dorm from his friends and researching it on his own time.
"I saw that [Brown residents] were enthusiastic about living here so that made me look into it more," Bryant said. "I started realizing how special Brown is."
Bryant said the main attraction of Brown was the diverse and tolerant nature of the residents.
"The people are predetermined to be open, accepting, enthusiastic, stimulating and overall, fun," he said. "They're here because they want to be and because they're looking for a community that will celebrate it with them."
Unlike typical dorms, Brown and Hereford have faculty fellows-- administrative and teaching faculty that are affiliated with the residential colleges. The faculty fellows often attend events held by the residents or host events of their own such as dinners and discussions or ice cream socials.
It gives students "an increased opportunity to get to know the faculty on a closer level, which is good for a university with larger classes," Starkenburg said.
At Brown, residents and faculty fellows can teach short courses for which residents alone may receive credit as part of their Distinct Academic Program.
Second-year College student R.J. Beavers, a Hereford resident, said Physics Prof. Lou Bloomfield, Hereford principal, and his wife are very involved. They invite residents over to their home to watch "Grey's Anatomy" on their viewing screen.
"It's a really nice place and they're really nice people," Beavers said. "They're constantly doing something with us to make [living in Hereford] a more fun experience."
Beavers, a returning resident of Hereford, said it is a good place to live despite the location.
"It's not terrible," Beavers said. "It's a little more walking but it's well worth it. ... You're so far up there by yourselves that you're kind of a community within itself."
For students interested in current events, global and cultural issues, the IRC offers a living community focused on those topics.
Second-year College student Yanet Garcia said the diverse community and various events are what attracted her to return to the IRC for a second year.
"We are so united -- at the IRC it's like we're a big family," Garcia said.
With students hailing from all over the world, different languages and cultures mix, presenting many opportunities for to learn and discuss different lifestyles, traditions and upbringings.
"There are so many cultures all together in the same place that you get to know so much about the world," Garcia said.
These three residential colleges give students the opportunity to befriend others with similar interests, regardless of what year they are in at the University.
"It offers an alternative experience, an alternate to the traditional first-year experience," Starkenburg said. "You have both your peer group in the college, but also the opportunity to interact with students in all four years."
Beavers said he especially enjoyed getting to know the upperclassmen at Hereford while he was a first year last year.
He said first years tend to feel "like they're the plague" when the upperclassmen point out how they look, traveling in huge groups to the dining halls for the first time.
"When they put you with all these upperclassmen, it makes it seem less intimidating to talk to the upperclassmen," Beavers said.
The residential colleges provide chances to create a community atmosphere by socializing and bonding through dinners, banquets, trips to Monticello, Washington, D.C. and Kings Dominion, and more events depending on the requests of the residents.
"You meet a wide array of people that I think you miss out on if you live in strictly first-year dorms," Beavers said.
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