The campus community is invited to the dedication of Adohi Hall, the University of Arkansas’ newest residence hall, on the southern end of campus.

The event starts at 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, in the hall’s performance area.

Please RSVP before Wednesday by emailing 4student@uark.edu or by phone at 479-575-2381.

Scott Flanagin, communications director for Student Affairs, will be the master of ceremonies. Speakers include:

  • Joseph Steinmetz, chancellor
  • Charles Robinson, vice chancellor for student affairs
  • Florence Johnson, assistant vice chancellor for University Housing

Light refreshments and tours of the common and residential space will be provided.

Staff parking can be found west and south of the building in Lots 62 and 56d, respectively.

ABOUT ADOHI

Adohi Hall, made up of three buildings, opened this August. The $79 million project adds an additional 708 new beds on campus.

“Adohi” is a Cherokee word that means “woods.” It was chosen in consultation with members of the Cherokee Nation. The name references the use of timber in the design and honors and remembers the Native American people who passed near the area during the Trail of Tears period.

There is a marker south of the hall that recognizes the passage of those native people as they traveled to Oklahoma.

Adohi is the only residence hall project in the United States to use cross-laminated timber and the first multi-story advanced-timber structure in Arkansas. This construction material, made up of bonded layers of wood, creates much less waste than materials like concrete or steel.

It is also the site of the Adohi Creative Community, made up 10,000-square-foot space in the southernmost building, Adohi South.

The creative community is open to residents living in the hall and designed to enhance their academic experience by giving them access to tools and training in the creative arts.

The space features:

  • Music practice rooms
  • Movement studio
  • Graphic design studio
  • Indoor and outdoor performance areas
  • Recording studio and green room
  • Maker space with 3-D printer and software, laser cutter, sewing machines, soldering equipment and other crafting tools
  • Paint room which allows the exhaust from the paint fumes to be extracted

Five Living Learning Communities also reside in the hall. Living Learning Communities are made up incoming freshmen who live in the same hall and attend supplemental programs in their area of interest.

The five Living Learning Communities in Adohi Hall are:

  • Architecture and Design
  • Art
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation
  • Music
  • Theatre

Visit University Housing’s Adohi Hall webpage for more information and updates about the project.

The event will be broadcast live on the Division of Student Affairs’ Facebook page.

Adohi Hall is the first new residence hall to open on campus since Founders Hall in 2013. The Maples neighborhood, including Maple Hill East, Maple Hill South and Maple Hill West, were constructed in two phases between 2007 and 2008.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The indigenous history of the land our campus sits on goes back more than 13,000 years, and across that expanse of time, many successive groups lived on and created sacred legacies for this area. We know virtually nothing about their languages or by what names they referred to themselves.

By the time people of European origin arrived and began to write down their own observations and record the stories Native Americans related about their histories, the Osages had long been using this area as a source for food and other commodities, though their villages occupied lands farther north in Missouri.

During the early 19th century, Cherokees living in the Arkansas River valley also began to use this area, and then during the later 1830s and early 1840s other Cherokee groups removed from south Appalachian homelands passed through during the forced removals known as the Trail of Tears.

Co-authored by George Sabo III and Elliott West, Summer 2019

This article originally appeared Oct. 15, 2019 on University of Arkansas News website.