Our residence halls and townhouses are where you’ll lay your head at night, but it’s the lifelong friendships you’ll build and the experiences you’ll share in our vibrant and engaging community that will make SUNY Oswego truly feel like home. The experience of living on campus offers students a variety of opportunities to connect and become actively involved within their residence hall community. Take advantage of our free social and educational programming. With 100+ student organizations on campus, and hundreds of campus events each year, there is something for everyone to get involved in. We post many upcoming events that are happening in the residence halls and on campus on our Instagram page.
Getting Involved
Community Building Activities
The Resident Assistants regularly organize “community building activities” for the residence hall floors. These are the fun, social activities that help form a group of residents into a community. Whether it is watching a movie late at night in the lounge, eating lunch in the dining hall as an entire floor, or attending a campus sporting game together, these events are inevitably the foundations for building connections between residents and a sense of shared community. These events can even be initiated by the residents themselves, with the floor approaching the RA staff with their ideas. Many student athletes, theater performers, dancers, or musicians have been able to count on their fellow floor mates coming out to events to support them.
Educational Opportunities
SUNY Oswego’s Residence Life and Housing department prioritizes creating an environment within our halls that encourages learning and personal growth just as much as we help to connect residents with each other socially. To that end, we use several different strategies from bulletin boards to intentional conversations to ensure students have opportunities to explore and develop their knowledge and skills connected to five learning goals:
- Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
- Well-Being
- Self-Efficacy
- Leadership Development
- Community Engagement
Special Events
The largest social programs of the year are centered around bringing the entire residential student population together for some fun activities!
LakerFest: Residence Life and Housing welcomes all our students to campus with this annual carnival-like event that occurs the first Saturday of the fall semester. Staple activities include numerous inflatables, a zipline, food trucks, a live DJ, build-a-buddies, a mechanical bull, and fun photo booth opportunities so you can take pictures with your new friends!
WinterFest: This annual event occurs on the first Saturday of the spring semester and serves as an opportunity for students to get together and reconnect after the long winter break! Activities are typically winter themed and feature free open skating, a hot chocolate bar, build-a-buddies, an escape room, snow-globe making and more!
LakerNight Series: All of our individual residence halls take turns facilitating their largest social program of the year! All residential students are invited no matter which hall you live in and these events occur on a Friday or Saturday night. The themes of the programs vary from year to year and in the past have included casino nights, fall fests, Halloween proms, and a trip back to the 60’s. Make sure to show your hall pride and lookout for details on when your community’s LakerNight is set to be in full swing!
