Creating a Caring Community

Excited to get away from home and be out on your own? Sure! Not so excited about living with someone you’ve never met? Yeah, we know!

Life on a college campus can be thrilling, but it’s a big change. It offers a chance to:

• learn how to live in a community
• build healthy relationships
• engage in wholesome activities
• take responsibility for your choices
• and deepen your commitment to Christ and the church

Staff you can rely on

At EMU, you’ll find a campus community full of caring people working to create a space of welcome as you move from one home to another. Here’s our department’s mission statement:

Serving Christ, we will walk with students while striving to provide a safe and healthy environment for those in our care—creating community in which students are welcomed, challenged, loved, and experience accountability and joy.

In addition to a university-wide director and assistant director of residence life, each dorm has a residence director (RD) who lives within the dorm with his or her family, on hand to help in every way. RDs are part-time, live-in, professional staff, usually enrolled in graduate programs. They provide counsel, opportunities to grow and learn, hold you accountable to community standards and will help you adjust to this new place. Learn more about our staff

Student leaders trained to help

RDs work with five to seven CAs, or community advisers, upper-class students who have been through a rigorous training and selection process. You’ll find them in the apartment located on the main floor of the residence hall.

And nearly 40 students serve as ministry or pastoral assistants, leading small group Bible studies and other fellowship activities in residence halls. These student leaders also plan and lead chapel services, organize sharing time in the residence halls, and more. Learn more about campus ministries

These student leaders are on each floor of each dorm, so there is always someone to turn to with questions or just to connect in friendship.

Living together, learning together

EMU is a Christian residential college committed to the education of the whole person. Here students face the challenges of personal growth and group sharing as they respond to the invitation to understand and respect each other.

As students share, they learn about each other and grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Nearly 20 percent of EMU students are from diverse racial, ethnic or international backgrounds. And meaningful community living opportunities offer even more chances to live “outside the box” and learn from others.

Christian environment

Do I have to be Mennonite to feel at home here? No! EMU’s undergraduate students are a mix of more than 30 different denominations, with Mennonites making up only half. We share core values and together we worship, celebrate, challenge, encourage and inspire each other to grow in our relationship with God.

Opportunities for dialog, to reach out and connect with other students, are everywhere.