Tech plans to have two new learning villages on campus by next fall.
Ellington and Warf Hall will be the home of the arts and media village while a global village will be located in M.S. Cooper. The arts and media village is meant to appeal to students involved with music, art, and communication and the global village is for students interested in a global perspective.
However, students do not have to live in the residence halls in order to take advantage of what the learning villages have to offer.
“You don’t have to live in the village to be a member,” Scott Northrup, a faculty member of the Learning Villages Advisory Committee, said. “In fact, we want to reach out to commuter students and people that don’t even live in Cookeville,”
Tech is already home to four other learning villages: the environmental village in New Hall North (referred to as “The Treehouse” by village members), the service learning village (which is also known as “The Service Center”) in New Hall South, a women’s village is located in Crawford Hall and an engineering village is currently stationed in Maddux and McCord Halls.
The learning villages are intended to have a general focus on their respective themes, but are also intended to be places on campus to socialize.
“The idea of these themes is not to dial in on a specific discipline on campus, but to try to bring in people from widely different programs that have a common theme,” Northrup said.
While students may be familiar with the environmental village’s campuswide recycling initiative, the learning village also offers tutors, a bike-share program, mixers, and, according to Northrup, it has even held raves for its members.
Development of the learning villages will continue by adding two new villages every year. As for next year, the committee is leaning toward starting a health and wellness village, but is still open to other suggestions.
“We’re very open to input from outside if people have ideas,” Northrup said. “If students have visions for what kind of villages they’d like to see started on campus, we want to be responsive to what’s out there.”
For more information on the learning villages, visit http://www.tntech.edu/reslife/livinglearningvillages.
