List of University of Massachusetts Amherst residence halls


The University of Massachusetts Amherst housing system is made up of six dormitory areas, two apartment areas, and one hotel. At UMass Amherst, first year students are required to live on campus. Housing is open to all full-time undergraduate students, regardless of year. Upper-class students who have continuously lived on campus during their first and sophomore years are guaranteed housing as long as they choose to live on campus. If, however, a student is admitted after their sophomore year, or moves off campus, and wants to move back onto campus, they are not guaranteed housing, but instead must go through a housing lottery, since demand outstrips supply. Building and room selection is accomplished by a that takes into account building seniority as well as class year; those choosing to move from their building are subject to a lottery system, There are around 12,700 students living on-campus. making it have the third-largest on-campus residential population in the United States.
Students living on the UMass campus live in one of the six residential areas: North, Sylvan, Northeast, Central, Orchard Hill, and Southwest. Several residential areas have a student-run business. All campus residence halls are staffed by Resident Assistants, who provide programming and community development, as well as enforce policies, and have quiet hours, which start at 9 pm on weekdays, 12 midnight on the weekends, but may vary from hall to hall.

Residential areas

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Northeast

Northeast, is across the street from North and diagonal to Sylvan. The residential area consists of nine buildings assembled in a rectangle surrounding a grassy quad. The quad also contains two volleyball courts that are open during the fall and spring season as well as hosts periodic academic celebrations that include games, activities, and food. Northeast is one of the oldest residential areas on campus and has what one might call classic academic architecture, consisting of red brick buildings and gabled/shingled roofs. Buildings of note in Northeast include Johnson, which is an all-female dorm; Hamlin, which is an all-male dorm; as well as Lewis, which provides international students with 9-month housing and is home to one of the Residential Wellness Center facilities offered on campus. Thatcher is unique because it has a foreign language program, which includes several floors, each with a different language. The residents of these floors are encouraged to speak the language they are studying with their floor-mates. Dwight Hall offers the Asian-American Student Program. Crabtree Hall and Leach Hall house the Engineering Residential Academic Programs. There is also the 2 in 20 Floor, which fosters a positive connection with the campus's LGBT community. Its location is undisclosed to protect its residents' privacy. However, no information has been found to back up the existence of this floor.
In Fall 2008, the cluster of Crabtree, Mary Lyon, and Knowlton became all-freshmen housing, as Northeast joined the First Year Experience program to offer freshman-only living. The previously all-female Knowlton became co-ed, and Johnson became the new all-female dorm.
Northeast is also home to Worcester Dining Common, which contains a separate dining room called the Oak Room, primarily offering Asian-style food during the lunch and dinner hours. Worcester's basement is also home to a small, grocery-style convenience store as well as Chicken & Co. which replaced the former Pita Pit. Plans to reconstruct the Worcester dining Commons to a more modern, spacious, and sleek building has started in the parking lot adjacent to the current building. Projections estimate the building to be in use during the fall semester of 2020.

Buildings

Central is unique because it has three academic buildings in addition to nine residence halls located along a hill on the east side of campus. Academic buildings in Central include Hills House, New Africa House, and Fernald Hall. Central is also home to the Central Art Gallery in Wheeler House. New Africa House has a particularly interesting history; the building was formerly known as Mills House, and was a dormitory prior to an incident in 1969 when a group of black students seized the building and barricaded themselves within, ordering all white residents to either join forces with them or get out of the building. The faculty of the newly formed Afro-American Studies department responded by moving its offices into the building to show solidarity with the black students, and the building became New Africa House.
Central is organized into 4 clusters of buildings: Gorman-Wheeler and Brett-Brooks at the bottom of the hill, Baker, Chadbourne and Greenough organized in a quad halfway up the hill, and Van Meter-Butterfield at the top of the hill. Gorman House was previously a building-wide Living Learning Community called NUANCE. Founded in 1989, it was a diversity awareness Living Learning Community. It also offered substance-free housing on its Wellness floor. As of the 2009–2010 academic year, Gorman House become freshmen-only and discontinued the NUANCE theme and wellness floor. Wheeler used to be home to the Central Art Gallery, which was closed in 2008 and transformed into dorm rooms. Brett is a nine-month housing dorm, allowing students to stay during breaks for a fee. As of 2014 Wheeler was converted into a first year residence hall and separated from the previous cluster Brett-Brooks-Wheeler and joined Gorman. Brett has had a reputation for being a popular option for student-athletes before the North Apartments were built, and still houses the freshman hockey players. Brooks is the only all-Wellness dorm on campus, requiring all of its residents to abstain from substance use. Baker, one of the largest dorms on campus, houses the Area Office. Greenough has two substance-free floors and is also home to the Greeno Sub Shop, another one of the student run businesses. Chadbourne houses the Josephine White Eagle Native American Cultural Center. Butterfield is home to the Creative Expressions RAP, for sophomore-only living, while Van Meter, across the street, is a freshman-only dorm. Van Meter is the largest dorm on campus in terms of residents, while Butterfield is the smallest and has a rich community history.
University Health Services is located next to Brett and Brooks halls, on Infirmary Way. Central is serviced by Franklin Dining Common, across the street from Brett and Wheeler. Franklin contains kosher and vegan dining options as well as a convenience store.

Buildings

Completed in 1964, the Orchard Hill residence area is located in an old apple orchard which still blooms every spring. It is located to the north of the Central residential area, and to the east of the main academic campus. Orchard Hill is composed of four residence halls: Dickinson, Webster, Grayson and Field. Currently, Dickinson and Webster buildings are Residential First Year Experience housing. RFYE housing is built around a central theme for each building: Webster is known as a "Leadership" building, focusing primarily on the liberal arts, whereas Dickinson is "Science and Discovery" themed. Dickinson is home to a number of Commonwealth College academic themes as well, including the honors engineering, computer science, and nursing floors. Furthermore, it houses one of the last Talent Advancement Programs remaining on campus, the BioTAP.
Webster is home to one of the Residential Wellness Center facilities offered on campus. Orchard Hill is known for its yearly spring event, Bowl Weekend, which is put on each year by the Orchard Hill Area Government.
Besides the residential area, Orchard Hill also refers to the hill on which the Orchard Hill Observatory and a cell phone tower are located. Field also houses Sweets 'n More, a student run business on campus. Grayson is the only dorm on campus to offer second-year themed housing, an upper level engineering floor located on Grayson 2.
Orchard Hill is the only residential area on campus where single rooms are not offered; all of the rooms in the four buildings are doubles with the same layout. The area is serviced by both Franklin and Worcester Dining Commons, which are roughly the same distance down the hill.

Buildings

Southwest is the largest residential area on the UMass campus. It consists of five 22-story towers—named after four U.S. Presidents born in or associated with Massachusetts, and George Washington – and eleven smaller residence halls, also known as low-rises, holding a total of around 5,500 students. The low-rises are arranged as such: two freshman-only clusters in the north, a freshman-only cluster in the south, and located along Sunset Avenue to the east are two clusters offering nine-month housing. Cluster offices are located in James, Melville, Cance, Prince, MacKimmie, Pierpont, and in each of the five towers. Additionally, Thoreau and Cance are home to the area office for the north and south portions of Southwest, respectively. Moore is home to the Residence Life Resource Center. Meanwhile, JQA and Washington are the homes to two of the Residential Wellness Center facilities offered on campus.
Southwest houses three of the five campus dining commons, including the inactive Hampden Dining Common which houses Southwest's only convenience store. Hampshire is in the north and the newly renovated Berkshire is in the south, both offering traditional food. Berkshire also offers Late Night, a popular snack-oriented option open until midnight 7 days a week. Hampden was initially planned to be a tower for graduate students and stories as to why it instead became a dining common vary, although the rumor of a construction collapse is not true. The Connecticut River is a fault line and there may have been problems driving the pilings deep enough to reach bedrock but most reports are that the yield on the bonds was less than anticipated and they simply ran out of money. Hampden is host to the Hampden Art Gallery, Convenience Store, Southwest Area Government Office, Latin American Cultural Center and the Southwest Cafe & Pita Pit.
Also found in Crampton in Southwest is the Stonewall Center, a resource for LGBT students and allies.
Southwest houses approximately 50% of the students living on campus. Southwest is known for its lively, festive, and active community spirit, often stereotyped as a center for "party" activity. After both victories and losses by the New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox in 2002, 2003 and 2004, as well as after the December 2006 UMass defeat in the NCAA Division I-AA football championship game, students held large impromptu festive gatherings in the Southwest Mall which led to injuries, incidents of property destruction, and significant police involvement.
Throughout the past few years, UMass administration has tried to control such “riots” from occurring by planning school run events in the southwest residential area. Throughout the 2013 World Series, the dining halls and residence halls planned viewing parties for the game between Massachusetts’ own Boston Red Sox while they were trying to take down the St. Louis Cardinals for the championship. For the clinching game of the World Series Umass student affairs put on an event outside of the residence buildings so fans could enjoy the game peacefully but with excitement. An email was sent to all students stating “As you watch the games – on or off campus – please remember to represent the campus well” along with a link to a Responsible Fan website that gives rules and regulations for such events. Although the effort was there, the Student Affairs were not entirely successful in keeping the students in check. There were15 arrests on the night of October 30, 2013. Pepper balls and smoke bombs were set off by police to disperse the rioting crowd and what started as a friendly community viewing of the baseball game turned into a frenzy of students running away from riot police.

Buildings

Sylvan was built to house medical students. The UMass Medical Center, located in Worcester, was initially planned to be on the Amherst Campus between Sylvan and Health Services, with both being built in anticipation of the larger medical school being built between them.
Sylvan is adjacent to the North Residential Area, and before the opening of North in 2006, was the newest residential area on campus, construction having been completed in the early 1970s. Sylvan contains three, eight-story towers: McNamara, Brown, and Cashin. Sylvan is distinctive for offering suite-style living in a shady wooded area. Contrary to popular belief, the Sylvan name doesn't have any Latin roots. Each residence hall contains 64 suites and each suite is either all-male or all-female. For Fall 2007, a gender-neutral suite was made available "to students who do not want to identify a gender, students whose gender identity is in transition, and their friends and allies." In Fall 2009, Cashin became a 12-month dorm providing on-campus housing for graduate students.
Each suite is a mixture of double and single rooms, a common bathroom, and a common living room. Suites accommodate six to eight residents. Sylvan is also home to the Sylvan Snack Bar one of eight student-run businesses on campus. The SSB delivers food right to students doors in the Sylvan living area. The snack bar, located in the basement of the McNamara building, provides food and a student hang out for the Sylvan residents.

Buildings

The Commonwealth Honors College Residential Community is a residence area reserved for members of the Commonwealth Honors College, completed in late 2013. Featuring six dormitory buildings, an advising center, offices, classrooms, and a cafe, it can house about 1,500 students. The area is bordered by the Recreation Center and Dickinson Hall to the north, Boyden Gym to the south, Tobin Hall and Goodell to the east, and Commonwealth Avenue on the west. Two halls, Sycamore and Oak, are designed to accommodate first-year students, and the other four halls, which contain suites and apartments, are designed as multi-year residence halls.

Buildings

North

Recently completed, the newest residence halls on campus opened in the Fall of 2006. Located between Sylvan and Northeast, these apartment-style dormitories house approximately 850 undergraduates in four buildings. The buildings are currently named North A, B, C, and D. Each unit comprises four single bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a shared common area including a full kitchen. Other amenities include Ethernet and cable access, central air, and laundry on-site. New to North in 2008 includes free wireless access throughout the North Residential area. This is a separate network from the academic campus wi-fi and allows for faster speeds and MAC authentication in the area. This is a nine-month housing area, which allows students to remain on campus from September to May.

Buildings

Northwest Residential Area

The Northwest Residential Area was a residential dorm area for campus that was planned to be built north of where the parking lots for parking services are today. The only references for this dorm complex exist on maps of the 1960s, there was also a second proposed interchange with Route 116 in this location.
The problem was that this is all swampland and the Clean Water Act of 1972 put an end to filling in wetlands. Hence while the North Village and Presidential apartment complexes were built on filled-in wetlands, the 1972 law brought all plans to further develop this area to a screeching halt.
Even if filling in the land could somehow be permitted, it would be exceedingly expensive to do as there is really no place to drain the water to, and water from adjacent development has increased the water here.

Hotel

Hotel UMass is a school-run hotel located above the Campus Center. The hotel is used to train students in the Hotel and Hospitality program. In addition, if a student isn't able to find a room immediately, they are placed in the hotel at regular rates.

Former buildings

Several of the lecture halls and administration buildings formerly served as dorms. Draper Hall was one of them, built in 1905, the building served as one of the first woman's dorms as well as a dining common. Many of its larger windows have since been filled in, and today it serves as office space for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
The first dorm for women was the Abigail Adams House. Built in 1920, its name was the result of a contest to all women students of the college as well as all female high school students in the state. This dorm suffered a disastrous fire in 1962 and was converted to office use until being razed in 1967 to make way for the John W. Lederle Graduate Research Center, but another woman's dorm, Butterfield, would be named in honor of President Kenyon Butterfield, the college president in the early 1920s and one of the proponents of the Adams House at the time it was built.
The present day South College was once both a dormitory as well as a laboratory, the building was originally built in 1867 but was then rebuilt in 1885 due to a fire that gutted the insides. The fire is believed to have been caused by the explosion of a kerosene burner for an egg incubator. South's sibling dorm, North College, was built in 1868 and housed around 64 students. The dormitory was then razed in 1955 to make room for Machmer Hall.
Mills House became New Africa House.
In the late 1940s, the University Apartments were built to provide housing for returning veterans. In the winter of 2009–2010, the buildings were torn down and the site was turned into a parking lot. Another complex of dorms was built for married couples, veterans and upperclassmen in the 1940s just across the street from where Southwest stands today. These "cinder block dorms", collectively known as County Circle, were named for five Massachusetts counties- Berkshire, Plymouth, Suffolk, Middlesex and Hampshire County. Of the five original buildings, only three remain. Currently Hampshire House is home to local NPR station WFCR, while Berkshire and Middlesex are used for storage and office space. Plymouth House and Suffolk House were torn down in the late 1960s to make way for Massachusetts Avenue, which runs between the complex and Southwest.
Hills House, two 4-story buildings connected by a shared first floor lobby, was built as a Men's dorm in 1960. Seriously damaged by vandalism, it use as a dormitory was abandoned in 1969 and it was "temporally" used as academic space until being demolished in 2017.