A Diverse Community: Gaia House values diversity of age, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, academic discipline, and just about any other human variable you can think of.  This philosophy is represented in features that distinguish us from other housing options:

• Gaia House residents will include undergraduates, grad students, faculty, and staff.  We plan to have at least one faculty member or Gaia House staff member living on each floor of the residence, as well as students of many different ages and stages of life.  This will encourage a welcome sense of civility and responsibility in daily life, while still allowing for a vibrant social scene.
• Non-residents can be members of Gaia House, too.  Students who choose to live elsewhere can still join Gaia House and benefit from our unique resources; our hope is that students will continue to grow with us for the whole time they attend SIU.
• Gaia House will be a nexus of intercultural and interfaith cooperation.  UCM has a long history of supporting cooperation and understanding across cultures and faiths.  Our current building, the Interfaith Center, has provided a home for many different religious groups, including Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Pagan groups, and in the past hosted the weekly SIU International Student Coffee Hour for many years.  This tradition will live on at Gaia House, and helping students learn about and respect each other’s heritage will be a priority.
• Residents will prepare food together and care for the building together.  Under the direction of our kitchen and maintenance staff, residents will each spend several hours a weeks contributing to meal preparation and clean-up and basic maintenance of living spaces.  Caring for each other in this way helps to create community.

Environmental Sustainability: We believe that making environmentally sustainable choices should be easy and automatic.  Our building will have many innovative green features built right in, but we will also promote and facilitate green choices in everyday living.  Here are just a few of the ways we will do that:

• We will offer secure, covered bicycle parking, and qualified residents will be able to borrow a shared car.
• We will offer vegetarian and vegan options at every meal, and buy as many foods from local & organic producers as we can.
• Recycling and composting will be streamlined and convenient.
• Laundry drying racks will be available.

Peace and Justice: In a world full of conflict and injustice, it is all too easy to become overwhelmed and disheartened.  Teaching students about the world’s problems does little good unless they also learn about effective tools for change. 

• Gaia House educational programs will take a practical, hands-on approach to problem-solving, giving members the skills they need to create the change they want on the issues they care about.
• Members will have many opportunities to learn from each other about the social justice issues that concern them most.
• Members will volunteer their time to serve the local community in many different ways.

Spiritual Wholeness: we believe that we are far more effective at creating positive change in the world when we understand our deepest selves and can articulate our values.  Taking some time out from the daily grind to reflect on life’s big questions is rewarding and sustaining, and it’s something we will strongly encourage at Gaia House.

• Spiritual life will be treated as a practical part of everyday living, from stress-relieving meditation workshops to discussions of the common ethical dilemmas of daily life.
• The Gaia House Director will be a qualified campus minister, with the professional experience to counsel students, conduct worship services, and officiate at important life transitions such as weddings. 
• Gaia House grows out of a progressive Christian campus ministry, so one part of the Director’s mission will be to represent that spiritual perspective in the campus community; however, it is one of Gaia House’s core values that all spiritual paths are meaningful and should respect and learn from each other.  We also respect the fact that spirituality can be a private matter and that no one is obligated to share it with anyone else.

Interdisciplinary Learning:  College students face constant pressure to specialize; narrow expertise often seems easier to market.  Yet the world’s most pressing problems rarely stick to one discipline, and solving them requires making connections among many different fields.

• Gaia House educational programs will provide structured, hands-on experience in interdisciplinary problem-solving.  Each semester the members will choose one broad problem or theme to focus on, and the Gaia House staff and faculty mentors will help design diverse activities around that theme to include the talents and interests of all members, from art students to engineers.
• Members will benefit from informal socializing with Gaia House faculty mentors.
• Gaia House educational programs will also welcome the participation of community and business leaders in relevant fields.
• Members will be offered the opportunity to earn a certificate in Sustainable Living, depending on the depth and breadth of their participation in Gaia House educational programs.