Places

Living-Learning Communities

Intellectual community can — and often should — reach past classrooms, labs, and studios into the daily lives of students andfaculty.  At times, it should permeate where students sleep, eat, and socialize.  Arrangements for residential learning do this; and at Iowa, these mainly take the form of living-learning communities.  For students who share strong academic or professional interests, these can combine rooming together with curricula and further activities to extend intellectual interactions into informal talk.

 

In consequence, connections increase between classroom learning and personal experience.  That equips students to understand and discover more.  In fact, the whole situation shows students that reading, writing, reasoning, and otherwise ruminating about learning in the widest sense can be respectable, even enjoyable.

 

When students share interests, ideas, and abodes, they make friends more often and swiftly.  In some cases, these prove to be life-long.  Even lesser sidekicks, though, ease students quickly into feeling comfortable and doing better at college.  The research on this is ample and resounding; and it might hold most for Honors Students, who thrive on conversations that turn intellectual.  Such considerations lead Honors at Iowa to regard most arrangements for residential learning as contributions to honors education.

 

At Iowa, Honors recommends four sets of situations for residential learning as especially good for its students.  The Honors House fills Daum Residence Hall with Honors Students in a living-learning community linked by skywalk to the Blank Honors Center.  Like the Honors House, the Honors Nexus is a generalist community, welcoming Honors Students from all fields.  Located in Mayflower Residence Hall beginning in Fall 2009, the Nexus adds a focus on personal projects in art, research, or service.  These are ventured by participants and supported by mentors on the faculty and staff.

 

The Honors House and the Honors Nexus are two of fourteen living-learning communities at Iowa, with each of the others having a topical focus.  Honors also helps its students arrange Honors Clusters in residence halls other than Daum.  Please click on the right for further information on these arrangements for residential learning.