For the 2025-2026 academic year, students will be able to live in five theme houses: the Ozone Sustainability House, Iris LGBTQ+ House, Community Service House, Arts Collective Community (Wells House), and Bronner Multicultural Theme House (Smith House). This represents a significant change from the current 11 theme houses the college offers.
In February 2024, the Concordiensis reported changes to these theme houses, and Union’s housing department finalized these changes this January. This academic year, the college offers 11 theme houses for students to choose from: Arts, Bronner (multicultural), Cinematic, Dance, Dickens (literature), Iris (LGBTQ+), Maker (creativity), Ozone (sustainability), Symposium (politics), Tech, and Wells (community service) houses. The college also offered Game House and Serenity House (focused on stress relief), but these houses ceased operations after the last academic year. As of this year, none of these theme houses have house managers, who in previous years were students who functioned similarly to resident advisors (RAs).
For the next year, three houses, Ozone, Iris, and Bronner Houses, will remain theme houses and stay in their current locations. 32 Union Avenue, the current Cinematic House, will become the community service theme house. Wells House, the current community service house, will become the Arts Collective Community house. The remainder of the houses, Arts, Dance, Dickens, Maker, and Symposium houses will no longer be theme house options. None of the current or former theme houses will regain house managers, but “there will be a head RA that’s assigned to the general community to support them next year. That’s more to help with administrative tasks, purchasing, any questions around programming, and any roommate concerns, as opposed to what a traditional RA would be.” Catie Straube, the Director of Residential Education & Housing, explained.
“The changes were made to meet the overall residential experience of the entire community,” Straube said. When making this decision, the housing department was “looking at how the theme house program was currently working, what additional support can be put in place to build those communities, and the programming effort, as well as opportunities for non theme house members to have apartment-style options.”
Most of Union’s housing options are small and large residence halls, except for the theme houses and other small houses. The remainder of the houses on Seward Place are small houses owned by the college that students, primarily seniors, can select in the general housing lottery. With these changes, seven former theme houses will be available for selection in the general housing lottery.
Notably, rising sophomores can no longer apply to live in these theme houses. In previous years, a significant number of sophomores lived in theme houses. This decision was made because “the houses are without resident assistants in those spaces. As students transition through their college career, we want to continue to offer as much support as we can, and traditionally, sophomores need more support than a junior or senior would.” Straube told the Concordiensis.
Students will be able to apply for these theme houses by answering a series of questions on the general housing application. Once the housing application deadline passes, the answers to those questions will be sent to a faculty and student representative from each theme house for review. In previous years, the current residents of the theme houses would select the applicants without faculty involvement.
The general housing application is open now and closes on January 31st. Students must fill out this application in order to live in a theme house or participate in housing lotteries. Students can also contact [email protected] for more information or assistance with the application.
