Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
This is not your dad’s dormitory
Students begin moving into UA’s amenities-packed Adohi Hall
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas’ newest residence hall has a recording studio, two pianos and seven “sound-isolating rooms.”
There’s also a “movement studio” for dance and yoga, and a production workshop with four three-dimensional printers, a laser cutter, three sewing machines and two soldering irons.
This is not your dad’s dormitory.
The $79.6 million co-educational Adohi Hall consists of two five-story residence halls connected by a glasswalled “cabin” on the ground level. There’s even a rooftop patio.
“It’s really designed as a living-learning center for arts and humanities and design students,” said Joe Steinmetz, chancellor of the university.
Steinmetz said there had been a shortage of these “maker spaces” on campus.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in visual arts or performing arts or design or one of the fields of humanities,” he said.
University administrators toured the recently completed building Monday.
It’s the first residence hall built on the Fayetteville campus since 2013, when Founders Hall was completed, said Christopher Spencer, University’s Housing office spokesman. Founders Hall only has a capacity of 214.
Spencer said about 683 students are expected to move into Adohi Hall before classes begin for the fall semester Monday. About 636 of them are freshmen students.
On Monday, many students moving in said they weren’t aware of the amenities of their new home.
“I picked it because I knew it was the newest one,” said Chloe Nelson, a freshman from Forward, Texas.
“It was the last one left,” said Jordan Ross of Tulsa, Okla., who said she can’t sing but she might have to learn how now that she knows there’s a recording studio in her residence hall.
Noah Kauffman of Austin, Texas, said he picked Adohi Hall because it’s new and “it seems like a good location,” but he said the creative spaces were an extra incentive.
Total enrollment at the campus was 27,778 last fall, an increase of 220 when compared with fall 2017. Enrollment has increased incrementally over the past few years. The university saw year-overyear increases topping 1,500 students in 2010 and 2011.
Students normally spend freshman year living on campus, but many move after and spend the rest of their time while at the university living in an apartment or house.
“We need to accommodate more students on campus, and we really want to keep students beyond the freshman year on campus and give them a good experience,” said Spencer. “Amenities for us need to be academically focused, and that’s what Adohi Hall does.”
As enrollment increases in the university’s art school, more of those students will likely choose to live in Adohi Hall, said Steinmetz.
The university’s School of Art was established through a $120 million gift in 2017 from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation.
According to a university brochure, Adohi is Cherokee for “coming into the woods.” That’s an apt description. Spencer said Adohi Hall is the largest U.S. student housing structure to be built using the large, prefabricated wood panels known as cross-laminated timber.
Steinmetz said the new hall was paid for primarily through a bond issue.
“We’re in the middle still of some fundraising for some of the spaces that are in here,” he said. “So we’re still talking to some potential donors.”
According to the brochure, Adohi Hall is home to five “creative living learning communities” —architecture and design, art, entrepreneurship and innovation, music and theater.
Adohi Hall doesn’t having dining facilities, but its residents can go next door to Pomfret Hall for meals.
Mary Peacock, the “creative community coordinator” for university housing, said some students began moving in on Thursday.