What is Shea House Like?

Shea House offers the opportunity for approximately 75 students to live in an environment of total language immersion. Located on Jefferson Park Avenue, Shea House serves as the cultural and linguistic center at UVA for six to eight different languages, which may vary each year (previous languages have included Arabic, ASL, Chinese, German, Hebrew, Hindi and Urdu, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, and Russian).

Cultural events put on at Shea House are often presented in collaboration with faculty from the University’s language departments. Whether joking with friends, sharing meals, or discussing films or politics, students living at Shea House deepen their experience of these vital languages and their associated cultures.

Shea House requires a separate application in addition to your Returning Student Housing Application. Please see Shea House’s website for more information. Also note that living in a language house may require participation in a meal plan.