In fall 2022, all entering first-year HP students will live together in apartments interspersed with apartments for upper-level HP students. A total of approximately 400 HP students—200 first-year and 200 upper-level—will fully occupy Eighth Street Apartments (South and East), with HP staff offices and student/faculty lounge located in the adjacent Annex. Upper-level HP students will include about 160 continuing Georgia Tech students who have elected to continue their co-residence with the HP. In addition, the HP will be pleased to welcome its first cohort of about 40 entering upper-level transfer students who will begin their HP experience in fall 2022 in the new home of the HP in Eighth Street Apartments.   

These innovations are due to a collaborative partnership among the HP, a unit of the Office of Undergraduate Education, the Office of Housing and Residence Life (HRL), and Undergraduate Admission. The resulting pilot will advance the two-part mission of the HP: fostering curiosity, creativity, and connection among a diverse community of HP students to enhance their capacity to innovate in “Progress and Service,” and serving as an incubator for innovations serving the larger Georgia Tech community. The “vertical integration” of first-year and upper-level HP students residing in Eighth Street Apartments offers opportunities for improving the quality of the academic and social transitions of entering first-year and upper-level transfer students, building and sustaining community connections among students at all levels, and enriching the learning experience of all. 

Traditionally, Georgia Tech first-year students have not been placed in apartment-style residence halls because of concerns around their ability to build relationships with other students. Vertical integration of apartment-style housing allows for the formation of mentoring relationships between first-year and upper-level students in ways that are more difficult to forge and sustain if housed separately. Vertically integrated housing also provides an “instant community” for new transfer students, welcoming them to campus and providing a network of students with whom they live and learn. Co-residence among HP students at all levels offers opportunities, distinctive to LLCs, to enhance and enrich learning that begins in the classroom and continues in study groups and spontaneous conversations in Eighth Street Apartment study lounges and courtyards and over meals in dining halls. 

Dr. Roberta Berry, Executive Director of the HP, comments on the significance of this partnership and pilot program for the HP and the larger Georgia Tech community: “This has been a powerful partnership. All partners have advanced their missions to the benefit of Georgia Tech and our students. In the HP, we look forward to enhanced impact for our students, contributing to the shared goals of all LLCs and of all those who deliver other high impact practices at Georgia Tech. And we’ll be eager to share the results of the pilot with our partners and fellow LLCs.” 

In support of the pilot, HRL is connecting the efforts of the Eighth Street Hall Director and Resident Assistants to pilot goals, with Resident Assistants drawn preferentially from continuing upper-level HP student applicants. Resident Assistants will be integrated into HP’s student leadership group, working together as a team in planning and delivering HP events and activities. HRL is also managing assignment of upper-level students and entering first-year and upper-level transfer students to apartments in Eighth Street and preparing for the move-in of HP staff to their offices in the Eighth Street Annex in August.