Students this fall moved into the brand new Mary Louise Petersen Residence Hall
This year the University of Iowa celebrated the opening of a new 10-story, 501-bed residence hall on the west side of campus. The first batch of Hawkeyes moved into Mary Louise Petersen Residence Hall in August, the week before classes began. While all 10 of the previously existing UI residence halls have undergone renovations over the past few decades, Petersen is the first new residence hall on the UI campus in more than 40 years.
Designed with student success in mind, Petersen Hall offers cluster room arrangements to promote interaction within the building’s living-learning communities (LLCs). Each floor holds a population much smaller than the university’s other residence halls on campus to encourage making connections within LLCs, which are organized based on student interests. This year, Petersen includes students in the BizHawks, Global Mosaic, Hawkeye Pride, Kitchen Table, Popular Lit, and STEM Scholars LLCs. The building also features a number of gathering areas for students, including the Theodore M. Rehder Learning Commons and Black’s Gold Grill, where students can enjoy fresh items off the grill until midnight.
Named for 1951 UI College of Education alumna and former member of the Iowa Board of Regents Mary Louise Petersen, the chief purpose of this new residence hall is to address a shortage of student living space on campus. The student population at Iowa has doubled since the last on-campus residence hall—Slater Hall, across the road to the south—was built in 1968.
“Petersen Hall was built with three main goals in mind: to give us the additional space for the increasing number of students coming to the university; to give us a large, shared public space that the students in the entire west neighborhood would be able to use; and to meet the needs of today’s students by actively participating in living learning communities,” says Von Stange, assistant vice president for student life and senior director for university housing and dining. “This building will be vibrant with energy, ideas, activities, learning, and service.”
The University of Iowa has also began construction on a 1,023-bed residence hall on the east side of campus, located on Madison Street about two blocks north of the Iowa Memorial Union. The 12-story facility is expected to be open to students in the fall of 2017. The building will become the largest residence hall on campus and include dining facilities, study rooms, lounge and lobby space, and LLC housing.