Honors Communities
Honors Centerstone
Honors Centerstone expects to welcome students from all fields of study to a community focused on initiatives that engage Honors Students on or beyond the Iowa campus. This new residential community lodges Honors Students past the first year of study at Iowa, and its location is convenient: one block north and east of the Blank Honors Center. Centerstone residents may be returning or newly transferring Honors Students. The Honors Centerstone Community is operated as a part of the system for University Housing at Iowa; and its residents may (at their option) purchase full or partial meal plans, principally for dining in the Burge Marketplace only a block away.
The Centerstone building opened in 2000. Apartments in this handsome facility on 121-131 East Davenport Street feature five individual bedrooms, two full baths, a kitchen, and a living room. Amenities and leases are to be much the same as those for living on campus at Iowa. Suites include stoves, ovens, refrigerators, and dishwashers. They include a dining table and four chairs. Some also include balconies. There are laundry facilities on the premises, and there is central air conditioning. No pets are allowed, but lawn care and snow removal are provided. Meal plans are optional because the apartments include kitchens.
The Centerstone building has two wings, each with three floors. Its twenty-four apartments include twenty-two with five bedrooms each, one with four bedrooms each, and two with one bedroom. Resident Assistants will be living in the four-bedroom apartment, and the two-bedroom apartments will be available for sharing by two students each. On the left is a typical kitchen for one of the many five-bedroom apartments. (In the standard but approximate floor plan above, the kitchen is in the lower right corner.) Honors plans to use the Blank Honors Center for gatherings, as appropriate, of particular floors, wings, or the entire community. The plan is to provide the usual residence-hall support as live-in resources within the Centerstone building. Honors plans to assign a couple of Honors Student Coordinators to Centerstone for developing its academic and social programs.
Covered parking is available for $90 a space per month under the Centerstone building. There are forty-six spaces. Centerstone residents need not contract for Centerstone parking spaces, but they have first claim on them. Residents can sign up for parking when they pick apartments at the headquarters for University Housing in 4141 Burge Hall.
The community seeks residents who show significant engagement in intellectual, leadership, or service endeavors and who are likely to take strong advantage of Honors opportunities during their year or more as members of the Honors Centerstone. For its programs encourage students to pursue their honors educations at Iowa with vigor and imagination.
The projected cost of living in the Centerstone Community is $7,200 a person for the academic year in 2011-12. This is about $400 higher per year than a single room in the residence halls on campus. Each bedroom is furnished with the same items as a single room in a residence hall: a bed, a dresser, a desk, and a chair. In effect, the additional money provides a semi-private bathroom, a full kitchen, and a living room. The living room will not be furnished, so that the residents may personalize it. The rent includes all utilities, including cable television and internet service, but it probably does not include any Hawkeye Dollars. Doing laundry on the premises requires quarters rather than allowing electronic debits.
Admission to the Honors Centerstone is available to Honors Students through application late in Fall 2010 — first to honors-housing@uiowa.edu then, if approved by Honors, to University Housing. The application form can be accessed above on the right. Honors Students must have lived on campus in AY 2010-11 or be transferring into the University of Iowa to live in the Honors Centerstone for AY 2011-12. Honors and Housing prefer that students apply as pre-arranged suitemates, with each suite limited to students of one sex. Ideally applicants would form themselves into teams of five, but Honors is willing to match two- and three-person teams to fill the five-person apartments.