Programs & Events

Living & Learning Programs

Special Theme Housing
ORLL offers returning undergraduates a chance to live with fellow students who share similar cultural or academic interests in fifteen existing settings housed in small wood frame houses around campus and several apartments within Latin Way and Hillsides. Options include the Africana House, Arts House, Asian American Culture House, Chinese House, Crafts House, French Language House, German Language House, Latino Culture House, International Culture House, Japanese Language House, Jewish Culture House, Muslim House, Rainbow House, Russian / Slavic Culture House, and Spanish Language House. Programs can include a wide range of activities: participation in these unique on-campus social and cultural communities and numerous opportunities to organize and take part in campus-wide educational, social, and community programming, peer mentoring, and language practice.

Descriptions of these programs are available from each house manager or in the Office of Residential Life and Learning. To learn about the houses, you can visit them, view their websites, call Residential Life and Learning at (617) 627-3248, or contact the advisor or house manager(s). Each program has its own application and selection process.

Bridge – Metcalf
The Bridge - Metcalf Program is designed to support intentional opportunities for undergraduates to build a bridge between academic and non-academic aspects of their lives as students. A live-in faculty member and members of the residential community contribute to events, lectures, and discussions on a regular basis. Specifically, the program exists to enhance intellectual life and personal development in a residential community, to increase out-of-class contact with a diverse selection of engaging faculty, and to build a vibrant intellectual residential community by expanding the range of shared activities to regularly include faculty and intellectual dialogue. There is a separate application process each spring for returning students interested in the Bridge - Metcalf option; first-year students can select this option when completing their housing questionnaire.

Carmichael Hall - Healthy Living
ORLL offers a healthy living residential option for those desiring a residential experience facilitating the practice of a lifestyle consistent with the wellness ideal. This option is for those who wish to contribute to a residential environment promoting physical and mental health through self-care and personal responsibility. While one aspect of this living environment is a “no tolerance” policy for substance use, all residents in healthy living communities are expected to contribute to the development of a healthy community through self-regulation, educational events, and programs. Separate healthy living options exist for first-year and returning students. There is a separate housing selection based on an application process each spring for returning students interested in the healthy living option; first-year students can select this option when completing their housing questionnaire.

First-Year Halls
Houston, Tilton, and Hill Halls present opportunities for first-year students to live with members of their class in a unique social setting, both uphill and downhill. While all first-year students are required to live in residential environments staffed with undergraduate and professional residential staff who provide social and developmental programming and strive to build positive communities and relationships, first-year halls also host a faculty member-in residence and two resident head tutors. Programming and community building around common class year-based experiences and social opportunities is a focus for staff in first-year halls. Please note that “First-Year Experience” events are open to students not living in first year halls and regularly publicized campus-wide.

Haskell Hall is a suite-style all first-year hall that combines the aspects of all-first year living with additional focus on active citizenship, one of the hallmarks of a Tufts education. Jointly supported by the Office of Residential Life and Learning and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, first year students in Haskell will have the added benefit of support from upperclass student leaders promoting involvement and awareness of active citizenship-related events on campus. Interested students will have opportunities to develop leadership skills to coordinate projects of their own creation while having regular opportunities to get to know students with similar interests in active citizenship-related areas.

Wren Suites
The Wren Suites program is intended as an opportunity for groups of sophomores to select a suite of rooms to live together as a community (four double rooms and two single rooms, grouped around a bathroom and public-access common room). The undergraduate and professional residential staff members provide social and developmental programming appropriate to the experience, interests, and needs of sophomore students.

Senior Corridor: Sophia Gordon Hall & Stratton Hall
Sophia Gordon (apartment-style) and Stratton Hall (traditional hall) are available (based on lottery selection) upper-class students with the goal of facilitating class cohesion and positive social opportunities for students with other members of their class-year. All students live in single rooms. Apartments contain private single bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and living room. Stratton Hall contains private single bedrooms, a shared kitchen, shared bathrooms, and shared lounge space. A professional member of the residential staff is available, in-hall in Sophia Gordon, to assist with student and facilities concerns.