University of Connecticut - Student Life

Student Life

Approximately 75% of all students, including many graduate students, live on campus. The university sponsors many events throughout the year for its students, and also oversees more than 500 student organizations available at UConn for both undergraduates and graduate students.

There is a wide variety of student organizations on campus, including fraternities and sororities, musical groups, and religious, athletic, political, cultural, business, military, artistic, and community service clubs. There are also student organizations set up with the intent of governing student life itself, such as the Student Union Board of Governors, the Undergraduate Student Government, the InterFraternity Council, the Panhellenic Council, UConnPIRG, Residence Hall Association, and the various residence hall councils. The university also has a daily student-run newspaper, The Daily Campus, which is the largest student newspaper in the state of Connecticut. As well as the newspaper, the university has a Huskyvision cable network, channels 14 and 16 at the university. Channel 14 is UCTV, a cable TV network consisting of student-made public-access television shows.

Also under way is the construction of the new Storrs Downtown Center, a mixed-use town center slated to include retail shops, restaurants, offices, and housing, situated on Connecticut Route 195 across from the UConn campus.

While many area activities are held on campus, the university provides free local bus transportation and also arranges frequent bus trips to Boston, Manhattan, and the Connecticut shoreline. The main university campus also includes a number of museums, theaters, and performing arts venues such as the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, J. Robert Donnelly Husky Heritage Sports Museum, the William Benton Museum of Art, and the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History. The UConn Dairy Bar was started circa 1953. It remains open year-round is well known for its ice cream, with roughly 200,000 customers visiting annually.