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Housing Preference

Choose Your Housing for Fall 2024

We've been waiting – building – for you and we look forward to seeing you take hold and thrive at St. Thomas.

Over the following years you'll have ample opportunities to learn, grow, check out the campus and the Twin Cities, make friends and feel at home. But before all that happens, we wanted to help you figure out where to start — like, where you're going to stay, where to eat, and who you're going to live with. Let's get started.

Questions?

Department of Residence Life
reslife@stthomas.edu
(651) 962-6470 or (800) 328-6819, Ext. 2-6470

Select a Learning Community

  • Why Select a Learning Community

    Choosing the Common Good Learning Community or a Living Learning Community is a requirement for all incoming students. Review both options and figure out which approach is best for you.

  • What is a Living Learning Community?

    A Living Learning Community (LLC) is a specialized living environment that helps connect students in and out of the classroom. Each LLC is unique, but all are centered on an academic area of interest or academic program.

  • What is the Common Good Learning Community?

    The Common Good Learning Community (CGLC) provides students with an experience centered on a mission-based theme. Students take two theme-based courses and participate in out-of-class activities related to the theme.

Details about Learning Communities

Explore First Year Options for Residence Halls

For fall 2024, first-year students will live in the following residence halls: Brady Hall, Dowling Hall, Ireland Hall and Tommie North. All residence halls are co-educational and first-year students are assigned by gender to the same floor, wing or pod. Learn more about each hall below.

Brady Hall, located on north campus, was built in 1967, renovated in 2022, and houses approximately 200 students. While most rooms are doubles, a few single rooms are available. Brady Hall will be single gender by floor. Community bathrooms with private shower stalls are located on each floor. Common areas include floor lounges, a computer lab, a recreation area, kitchen, TV area, and laundry room. Brady Hall is connected via Koch Commons to Morrison and Dowling Halls.

Brady room layout: 16' x 12' with two lofts with a desk and dresser underneath each and one closet with two layers of hanging racks.

sample floor plan for a room in Brady HallRead all the details about Brady Residence Hall

Dowling Hall, located on north campus, was built in 1958 and renovated Fall 2021. Dowling houses approximately 390 students and is designed with a north and south wing on each floor. Dowling is single gender by wing with community bathrooms, a single user bathroom, and study room on each wing. Common areas include study lounges on each floor, a service desk, a lower level recreation area, kitchenette, TV area and laundry room.

The average room size is 12' x 16', with 8' ceilings. While most rooms are doubles housing two students, a few single rooms are available. Double rooms have two XL mattress lofted beds with moveable desk and dresser underneath and one closet with two hanging racks.

sample floor plan for Dowling Residence HallRead all the details about Dowling Residence Hall

Ireland Hall, located on north campus, was built in 1912 with major renovations in the summers of 2019 and 2020.

Ireland Hall is home to 260 students and is single gender by floor. Common areas include a service desk, study rooms, lounges, recreation and TV area, laundry room and kitchenette — all rooms are carpeted.

Ireland Hall is mostly doubles with some single room options, and approximately 20 two-room triples. Additionally, there are eight resident advisors and a professional staff member who live in the building. Each floor has a north and south wing, with a common bathroom in each wing.

Furniture included are desks and desk chairs for each student, shared wardrobe or closet, dresser and XL twin beds with mattresses. All furniture is movable. During summer 2020, an elevator was installed at the east entrance facing Tommie North Residence Hall. There is a tunnel connecting Ireland to Tommie North.

The historic nature of Ireland Hall means that room dimensions vary from room to room, but double rooms average 13 feet 10 inches long by 10 feet wide. Specific room dimensions can be found here. For space, beds are lofted with dressers and desks underneath the loft, and a wardrobe is placed strategically in the room for hanging clothes.

Read all the details about Ireland Residence Hall

Tommie North Residence Hall is our new first-year residence hall housing approximately 480 students and opened in the fall of 2020. Located on the corner of Cleveland and Selby avenues and north of the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas, the building defines the new upper quad and northeast end of our campus. The building offers dining at The Northsider and classroom spaces on the first floor below the living area for the students. A tunnel connects this hall with Ireland Hall and the Iversen Center for Faith.

Residential housing is configured on floors 2 through 5 where students live single gender by pod. Each pod community has approximately 36 residents in double rooms and two common bathrooms with adjacent single-user bathrooms. Within a pod there are four different room layouts.

sample room layout for tommie north residence hall

Read all the details about Tommie North Residence Hall

Thinking about Roommates

How you complete your housing preferences will play a role in the roommate grouping process that begins in June. Whichever route you decide to choose, we encourage you to begin thinking about your preferences for each of these prompts and if you have a roommate in mind, begin talking about these preferences:

  1. Keeping my room clean is a priority for me
  2. I prefer to get up before 7am on school days
  3. I prefer to go to sleep before midnight Sun-Thurs
  4. I will spend most/all weekends on campus
  5. I am a non-smoker
  6. I prefer a roommate who does not drink alcohol

Let St. Thomas Find Your Roommate

If you prefer to have us find a roommate for you by using your answers to the questions on the Housing Preference Form, please complete the form and leave the rest to us. A majority of our students make this choice.

Submitting a Roommate Request

If you have a specific roommate request at this time, in addition to discussing the above questions, your placement in a LLC or CGLC MUST align in order to be roommates. You will be able to make this roommate request in June.

Indicate Your Housing Preferences

Once you know your preferred Learning Community, preferred Residence Hall, and how you want to handle Roommate selection, it's time to start the Housing Preference process. You may update your preference information online through June 5, 2024.

By the way, if you haven't already claimed your St. Thomas account, please follow these steps to do so:

To log in to the online housing preference process:

  1. Go to: https://banner.stthomas.edu.
  2. Select Log in to the Murphy Online secured area
  3. Enter the username and password you created when you claimed your St. Thomas account
  4. Select Student Services
  5. Select Student Housing System
  6. Select the link Click here to enter the University of St. Thomas Housing Portal (make sure pop-ups are allowed!)

Follow these steps to select your housing preferences:

  1. On the Housing Portal landing page, Select I am an incoming First-Year or Transfer Student in Fall 2024
  2. Select First-Year Housing Preferences Form
  3. On Welcome Page, select Continue to Next Step
  4. Select Meal Plan Preference
  5. Answer Roommate Matching questions (Instructions on how to indicate a specific roommate preference will be sent in a separate housing mailing in mid-June.)
  6. Select Living Learning Community (LLC) or Common Good Learning Community (CGLC)
  7. Verify LLC or CGLC and Answer LLC Question if displayed
  8. Select Housing Preferences and indicate Single Room Preference
  9. Select Medical/Disability Housing Accommodations Request and click Submit Housing Preferences to save and finish the process
  10. If you have medical/disability accommodation request in step 9, you will be automatically sent to the online form after you select Submit Housing Preferences, where you should indicate your accommodation need and rationale and then submit that form

We've also created this step-by-step guide to walk you through the online preference process.

Reminder: you may update your preference information in the Housing System in Murphy Online anytime through June 5, 2024.

You can always contact us with questions:
Department of Residence Life
reslife@stthomas.edu
(651) 962-6470 or (800) 328-6819, Ext. 2-6470