Division of Housing and Food Service leadership has emphasized the importance of educating students outside the classroom. The brochure details the many environments that have been created for this type of situational learning.

Situated cognition or situational learning are learning experiences using intentional social interactions and human artifacts to generate cognitive fields based on interdisciplinary principles. Translation: these "beyond classroom" settings stimulate learning by engineering different life spaces.

Students learn while passing by, socializing, studying, attending meetings and programs, dining, and simply living in UT residence halls.

The department places a great deal of emphasis and pride in "organizational diversity", a term that describes, in general, staff understanding and appreciation of individual and cultural differences and commonalities.

Some environments are of a passive, almost tranquil nature. Here, residents hold a tree pose in Almetris Duren Hall's Gallery of Texas Rivers, a comfortable space with large-scale prints by famed nature photographer Laurence Parent. "The gallery is designed to inspire a wider consciousness of the rivers of Texas, to stimulate an effective and vibrant learning community and to motivate life-long learning."

Sustainability and nutrition go hand in hand in the form of reusable takeout containers, biodegradable serviceware, in-room recycling containers, and locally sourced foods. Suitably, the brochure was printed on 30% post-consumer waste paper stock manufactured entirely from wind-generated electricity.

Photographer Wyatt McSpadden provided a view into the lives of students in the residence hall environment as they studied, played, and dined.