{"id":3179,"date":"2017-09-28T03:21:50","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T03:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/lavie\/?p=3179"},"modified":"2017-09-28T03:21:50","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T03:21:50","slug":"special-interest-housing-lvcs-specialty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2017\/09\/28\/special-interest-housing-lvcs-specialty\/","title":{"rendered":"Special interest housing: LVC’s specialty"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Breanna Kane ’19, Staff writer<\/p>\n

Students living in special interest houses at Lebanon Valley College are purpose-driven and play active roles on campus and in the community.<\/p>\n

LVC has 12 special interest houses each centered on a unique theme. The six more permanent houses include Green Dot, Sustainability, STEM, Stonewall, Friendship and Women\u2019s Services Gender and Resource Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love living in a special interest house because it\u2019s like living with sisters who are your best friends,\u201d Alyse Crandall, a sophomore special education and early childhood education major, said.<\/p>\n

Crandall lives in the Green Dot House.<\/p>\n

There are also six houses granted to student groups who proposed suitable themes during the housing process last year. They include Mental Health Awareness, Be the Change, Supportive Abuse Recovery, World Music Appreciation, Can Tabs for Kids and Men Influencing the Community.<\/p>\n

Special interest housing isn’t stagnant. While upgrades to the physical locations are budget-dependent, themes change more often. Changes elsewhere on campus also have an impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Stonewall House was formerly the academic advising house, where tutors would live, and in return, had to do around 20 hours per semester of volunteer tutoring,” Michael Diesner, director of residential life, said. “But our tutoring and writing center got so popular and is doing so well with the number of people interested in working there, there wasn\u2019t a demand to live in Center any longer from tutors. We moved Stonewall over to give them room to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, North College is now the STEM House. It\u2019s for first-year students majoring in science technology, engineering or math. The STEM House fits 17 people; admittedly, most of the special interest houses are smaller.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur houses that house anywhere between two to six people fill pretty quickly,\u201d Diesner said. \u201cThe sixes are a little more difficult. I noted that on the housing sign-up, six-person houses took a long time to fill this year. There are far more people signing up for four-person spaces like in Derickson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, special interest houses are an entirely different experience compared to dorm life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked at five different institutions, and this is the first place that has had houses,” Diesner said. “In my five years here, we\u2019ve transitioned from them just being general spaces that anyone can live in. We\u2019ve moved more towards opportunities for special interest houses that function almost as clubs. I\u2019ve found that it seems to be a more sustainable way of using our houses. It seems to be healthier, it gives an opportunity for leadership experience, and for the folks that follow through, it\u2019s really rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students don\u2019t just live in these houses; they actively support a theme that is generally designed to do good on campus and in the community. LVC has its residential life staff to thank for this option.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a unique experience to me after doing 20 years of res-life,\u201d Diesner said.<\/p>\n

Juniors and seniors interested in such an opportunity are encouraged to pursue that interest, but all students can apply if they meet the qualifications set by the houses they choose. Students can look for opportunities to join or create special interest housing in February and March.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Breanna Kane ’19, Staff writer Students living in special interest houses at Lebanon Valley College are purpose-driven and play active roles on campus and in the community. LVC has 12 special interest houses each […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}