First Year Experience Communities

Academic Communities

Live and learn with students who share similar academic interests while also fulfilling their Freshman Inquiry (FRINQ) class requirement.
Sharing a FRINQ class makes it easy for students to form study groups within the residence halls, collaborate on assignments, and build strong connections.
Our faculty make an extra effort to engage with students outside of class and each FRINQ is paired with a Learning Community Assistant who attends class and serves as in-hall academic support.

Below are current and past Freshman Inquiry courses we have offered.

Work of Art

Available for 2023-2024 & 2024-2025
Location: Broadway
FRINQ Class: Work of Art - UNST 132

“The Work of Art” FRINQ examines how art shapes, disguises, enables, and complicates our personal, social and cultural identities. By engaging in interdisciplinary texts and explorations—philosophical, political, literary, scientific, visual and historical—we will explore how art reflects, constructs and contests our understandings of imaginary, political, and social landscapes. Throughout the year, we will consider the relationship between the “work” and the “art”–both what they are, and what they do.

Race & Social Justice

Available for 2023-2024 & 2024-2025
Location: Ondine
FRINQ Class: Race & Social Justice - UNST 102

Explore what it means to be a well-rounded, informed citizen of a global community through social and cultural awareness and understanding while engaging in meaningful social and cultural dialogue.

Portland

Available for 2023-2024 & 2024-2025
Location: Ondine
FRINQ Class: Portland - UNST 108

In the Portland-themed FRINQ, we will explore the connections between people and the places in which they live, and consider how those places, in turn, play a role in people's social, cultural, economic, and political life. We will also consider how the history of a place shapes what we experience today. We'll explore Portland as an urban area of diverse communities, and a place within the natural, material, and social environment of the Pacific Northwest.

Health, Happiness, & Human Rights

Available for 2024-2025. Not available for 2023-2024.
Location: Broadway
FRINQ Class: Healthy, Happiness, & Human Rights - UNST 145

In Health, Happiness, & Human Rights, you will come to understand the health and well-being of individuals and populations in relation to their various environments. Specific emphasis will be given to social determinants of health and the intersections between health, communities, and human rights.

Design & Society

Not available for 2023-2024 or 2024-2025
FRINQ Class: Design & Society - UNST 122

Design(s) shape our daily lives. This yearlong course looks closer at the connection between design, people and change. Students use human-centered design and/or community-centered design to explore how creative inquiry can be a way to rethink society from cities to social systems to technology. Over the course of the year, students will step into hands-on projects as a way to learn how empathy, critical thinking and collaboration are vital to living in our society.

Themed Communities

Themed communities are designed to bring together residents with similar interests. There is no Freshman Inquiry course associated with these communities, though most first years will be taking a Freshman Inquiry course.

STEM

Location: Broadway

The STEM community gives residents the opportunity to build a community focused on fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

Viking

Location: Broadway and Ondine

Viking floors are located in Broadway and Ondine and are for first year students who have a variety of interests and want to experience the breadth of what PSU and Portland have to offer.

Honors Community

The Honors Community provides students admitted to the Honors College with the opportunity to live in a close-knit, dynamic community with other high achieving and highly motivated students.

Honors

Location: Stephen Epler

As part of the Honors community, students can participate in the life of the city and also experience the benefits of a small learning community. Living in Epler as an Honors student isn’t required, but highly recommended for its added resources, honors-specific programming, and proximity to the Honors House. Learn more about the Honors College.