Living on Campus

The House system is much more than the 10 undergraduate dorm buildings that provide students a place to live. The dorms are split into 38 Houses, each home to between 40 and 100 students. Each House, staffed by older undergraduates and graduate students, has its own identity, traditions, and elected student council.

Look to your House for support and for stimulation (or provocation); it's a place where you can grow socially, athletically, intellectually, culturally, and psychologically. You can develop friendships, find study partners and collaborators for projects, and contribute to the governance of the House. Living in a House adds to your intellectual life—consider it a continuous experiment in the human condition.

Because you help make decisions about the House you live in, you're bound to face some values-laden questions: Where are the boundaries of free speech in a living area? What is an equitable sharing of community resources and space? As you're learning to resolve these kinds of tough issues, the resident staff—Resident Heads (RHs) and Assistant Resident Heads (RAs)—can offer advice. You can also turn to your RHs and RAs for help in other areas: everything from an annoying roommate to loneliness to relationships.

In the dining rooms, you and other members of your House have a designated table, so you have a clear "home base." In looking back on the first days and weeks of their Chicago experience, many students say the House table was key to feeling part of a community and feeling comfortable with living on campus.

House System

  • Blackstone
    5748 South
    Blackstone Avenue
    2-2200

  • Breckinridge
    1442 East 59th Street
    4-6800

  • Broadview
    Wick, Talbot, and Palmer Houses
    5540 South Hyde
    Park Boulevard
    2-4880

  • Burton-Judson (B-J)
    Dodd-Mead, Chamberlin, Vincent, Coulter, Mathews, Linn, and Salisbury Houses
    1005 East 60th Street
    2-5100

  • Maclean
    5445 South
    Ingleside Avenue
    2-2700
  • Max Palevsky Residential Commons
    Alper, Flint, Graham, Hoover, May, Rickert, Wallace, and Woodward Houses
    1101 East 56th Street
    4-9200

  • Pierce
    Tufts, Henderson, Thompson, and Shorey Houses
    5514 South
    University Avenue
    2-5470

  • Shoreland
    Fallers, Bishop, Dewey, Michelson, Fishbein, Compton, Hale, Filbey, Bradbury, and Dudley Houses
    5454 South Shore Drive
    2-4550

  • Snell-Hitchcock
    1009 East 57th Street
    2-5675

  • Stony Island
    5700 Stony Island Avenue


Cooking your own meals
All-out cooking (i.e., more than Lipton's Cup-a-Soup) is allowed only in rooms and apartments with kitchens at Blackstone, Stony Island, and the Shoreland (students in those apartments must bring their own kitchen supplies). Many residence halls have community kitchens or small kitchenettes with microwaves where you can prepare light meals or snacks.

You'll have to bring your own plates, bowls, cups, and utensils. Be creative—: use a coffee pot to boil water for soup or ramen. Refrigerators can be purchased or rented on campus for a yearly fee. Residence halls have vending machines with soda and basic snack items, and two small stores on campus (Maroon Market in Bartlett and Capone's convenience store at the Shoreland) sell basic grocery items and snacks.

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