Welcome to Saint Joseph's University. Today I'm going to take you on a tour of all the freshmen residence halls. Living in a residence hall is a great way to make new friends and meet people from all different kinds of diverse backgrounds. Come on, I'll show you the halls. This is Lafarge residence hall where I lived my freshman year. It's home to about 320 students, it's co-ed, so there's girls and guys floor. Reslife has an office here CAS has a pop up office and the packaging center is in the basement, which is really convenient if you order a package every week, like I do. Come inside. So you have to swipe in with your Hawk card to get into the building, and then once you get to the desk, you have to swipe in again to prove you live there. But my favorite part about living in Lafarge was Miss Rita the desk attendant. She was lovely. I would bring her cookies from Campion sometimes, she would always ask how I was doing. So that's a really fun part about living in the residence halls is befriending the different desk attendants and saying hi to them and knowing their name. Lafarge is a suite style community offering three to six double rooms per suite and a shared suite bathroom with two to three stalls. Suite layout reminds many students of an apartment rather than a traditional college dorm room. Students have their own private space in their rooms, but also have a space where suitemates can spend time together that feels private in its own way as well. There are also two Resident Assistants per floor.

This is Sourin residence hall. It's another one of the suite style dorms. It's on the Philadelphia side of campus. It's right next to Campion, which is where the dining hall is. It's really close to the Perch, which is like a cool hangout spot. Each suite has about 14 people in it and come on, let's go check it out. Just like Lafarge, Sourin has a really nice gym on the main floor, as well as a really big common room. So it's really nice place to hang out with your suitemates, do homework, there's TV, couch, all that kind of stuff. It's a really fun place so you can maybe meet some fellow hawks or maybe even your Hawk mate who knows. There are two types of community experience for first year students, suite style and traditional style. Sourin is a suite style community offering seven double rooms per suite, 14 residents, one shared bathroom with two to three stalls and one private bathroom with an individual toilet, sink, and shower. There are two Resident Assistants per floor.

This is Villiger. It is a co-ed traditional style dorm, basically in the center of campus. The chapel is right there. The library is short walk away and Campion is right across the way. The crosswalk to get to the other side of campus is also right there. Villiger is a traditional style so there's 20 rooms on each side of the floor. 40 people per floor and there's a girl side and the guy side. There is a communal bathroom and end lounge which people love to hang out in on each floor. I know a lot of people who to this day still love hanging out with people from their floor. They would just leave their doors open and have people come in and out. So just like Sourin and Lafarge, there's a lot of great places for you to meet your friends with it being suites in suite style, but here everyone's good friends with people on their floor.

So this is my favorite spot on campus. It's Villiger lawn. It's a perk of living in Villiger. It's the beautiful lawn right here that people picnic on, do homework on, people are walking to and from class so you're bound to run into like at least 10 of your friends, but it's a great place to hang out on a beautiful day.

This is McShane. It is another traditional style residence hall but it's on the McGuire side of campus. McShane's best feature is probably the walk-in closets and the built-ins and the nice desk area. Come on! McShane has 19 rooms per wing, there's a girl side and a guy side, 38 residents on each. It's really nice because it is kind of removed from the hub of campus and it's also very close to the Barnes Arboretum and O'Pake fitness center. This is the McShane bridge, it connects the lower Merion side of campus to the Philadelphia side. And actually in four years you will be walking this bridge on your way to graduation, but you can walk at any time when you come to campus in the fall.

Our incoming first year students participate in the self selection process through which they select their room online. Students will engage in this process through the housing portal that is available from the New Hawks portal and the Nest. Within the housing portal students can complete their housing agreement, fill out a roommate profile questionnaire, search for compatible roommates, browse housing options, select their room assign. Students will receive a selection date and time during which they will access this system and select a housing placement from the available spaces. Students may choose to select with known roommates, whether they meet them through the housing portal or through other means, or may select as an individual into a space and then receive a random roommate. If a student selects as an individual into a partially occupied space, they will be able to see the profile responses of the student in the space before confirming their selection. Resources regarding the housing selection process, timeline, video tutorials and additional support are available from our website.

Thank you so much for coming on this tour with me and we can't wait to see you back here on Hawk Hill. sju.edu/reslife.