Residence Life and Experiential Communities - Johnson McFarlane Hall

We are now in front of Johnson-McFarlane Hall, the building with a white zig-zagged roof.

Johnson-McFarlane Hall, or JMAC, is another first-year residence hall on campus, in addition to Centennial Halls and the Dimond Family Residential Village which I mentioned earlier on the tour. I lived in JMAC my first year and absolutely loved it. But I can tell you, it is a popular debate amongst first-year students as to which first-year residence hall is the best.

The rooms within JMAC and the other residence halls on campus usually house two people per room, although a small number of the rooms are triple rooms. You can check out models and photos of the rooms on our website. There is a male-identifying, female-identifying and gender-neutral common bathroom in most of the halls. There are also Resident Assistants on every floor, and the front desk is staffed 24 hours a day to help students in any way they can.

Within the residence halls, we host several experiential communities that combine academic, social and residential life, allowing our students to build community around similar interests from the first day they arrive at DU.

For example, we have five Living & Learning Communities, or LLCs, which include Wellness, Environmental Sustainability, International, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice. These programs are just for first-year students and host 25-35 students per community.

We also offer the Pioneer Leadership Program, or PLP, which is a four-year program with 88 students per year. You take classes in leadership and do projects within the Denver community, and you graduate with a leadership minor by the time you finish at DU. 

When I was a first-year student, I was worried about coming from out of state and not knowing anyone at all, but because of the community I found within my residence hall and my orientation group, I felt an immediate sense of being at home on campus.

Continue a short ways down the path and keep walking until you cross Iliff Street. Turn left on the path when you get across the street, and follow it to stand by the beautiful ponds in front of the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science.