The Residence Experience

Make This Place Your Home

Living in residence is so much more than a room with a bed. Our Residence Life department strives to support all students in creating their home away from home. We do this by planning events and initiatives, hiring a team of 150+ Residence Life Staff to support you throughout the year and by offering the appropriate academic, wellness and programming resources that will allow you to thrive during your time at the University of Guelph.

About Residence Life

Residence Life is an operational unit under Student Housing Services (SHS). Other operational units under SHS include housing admissions, facilities and desk services, business operations, information systems (IT) and research. Residence Life is overseen by the Associate Director Residence Life who reports to the Director of Student Housing Services.

We believe that working to establish strong communities that consist of shared experiences, lasting connections and an appreciation for individual diversity and identity is key to the success of our students. While our staff and student leaders provide a myriad of opportunities and activities we encourage you to be an active participant in your experience and to be engaged within your residence and campus community. There are so many benefits to gain from a well-rounded experience, and learning can be just as impactful in a non-academic environment as inside the classroom. So, we encourage you to make the most of your experience and take advantage of our amazing Gryphon community!

Our Commitment

To help you get the most out of living on campus, our Residence Life Team works to create a residence experience that focuses on four key indicators of success:

A yellow pyramid with black text</p>
<p>Description automatically generated

How Do We Create This Environment?

We aim to create a residence experience where you feel safe and engaged. We hope that throughout the year, you will participate in the opportunities provided, enabling you to form meaningful and positive relationships, learn more about yourself, and discover opportunities to help you succeed academically. To achieve this, we have nearly 200 Residence Life Staff (RLS) members living in communities or working at the building- and residence-wide level. These staff create our Residence Life program each year and each residence student can expect to experience:

Shared community meetings and experiences
1-on-1 check-ins and chats with your community Residence Life member
Collaborations with campus partners that bring learning and involvement opportunities right into residence
Exciting and diverse residence- and campus-wide events/initiatives
Residence environments where community standards are upheld, through Community and Roommate Agreements; nightly RLS “On-Call” shifts, facilitated mediations, and more

Get Involved

Why get involved with your residence community? Lots of reasons!

You’ll build useful skills for the future, including those that you might not learn in a classroom
You’ll have some extras to add to your resume which can help you stand out when looking for a job
You’ll have a more balanced life - there is such a thing as too much studying
You’ll have a chance to try new things – and isn’t that what university is all about?
You’ll get to know new people and make new friends
You’ll have fun!