The blueprints for a new programming board called The Hopkins Organization for Programming ("The HOP") were drawn up during the summer and fall of 2006.

In addition Charles Village, the region of North Baltimore surrounding the university, has undergone several restoration projects, and the university has gradually bought the property around the school for additional student housing and dormitories. The Charles Village Project, scheduled for completion in 2008, brought new commercial spaces to the neighborhood. The project included Charles Commons, a new, modern residence hall that includes a Barnes & Noble and a Starbucks.[67] A Chipotle Mexican Grill and Starbucks have moved in, and the university itself has installed a new Einstein Bros. Bagels[68] franchise in Charles Street Market.

Hopkins has also invested heavily in improving campus life for its students with creation in 2001 of an arts complex, the Mattin Center; and a three-story sports facility, the O'Connor Recreation Center. The large on-campus dining facilities at Homewood were renovated in the summer of 2006, and the caterer was switched from Sodexho to Aramark.

Hopkins has also advertised the "Collegetown" atmosphere it shares with neighboring institutions, including Loyola College, UMBC, Goucher College, and Towson University, as well as the proximity of downtown Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender student organization, The Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance, affectionately called DSAGA, at Hopkins is well known. Annually DSAGA organizes and oversees the Awareness Days Program. This program is a series of events and speakers with the focus on LGBTA inclusivity and awareness.

Annually, the Johns Hopkins Spring Fair is held on the homewood campus over a three day weekend in mid to late April. Food, arts and crafts, and non-profit vendors, along with a popular musical act and various other activities attract nearly 25,000 people from the greater Baltimore-Washington area. The Spring Fair is planned and run entirely by Johns Hopkins students, making it the largest entirely student-run fair in the country.

Housing

On-campus housing is required for all freshmen and sophomores at Johns Hopkins, with exceptions for commuter students who live close to campus. Juniors and seniors typically reside off-campus in nearby apartments or row houses. Housing is not guaranteed for all four years at Johns Hopkins.

Freshmen housing is centered around Freshman Quad which consists of three major residence hall complexes: The Alumni Memorial Residences (AMR I and AMR II), Building A and Building B. AMR I was built in 1923 and AMR II in 1954, dedicated to Hopkins Alumni who died in World Wars I and II. Together they are divided into fourteen houses: Adams, Baker, Clark, Gildersleeve, Griffin, Hollander, Jennings, Lazear, Royce, Sylvester, Vincent, Willard, Wilson and Wood. The first eight houses can be found in AMR II and the last six in AMR I. While each house has its own entrance from outside, there are no dividers indoors that distinguish the houses from one another. In 1983, Buildings A and B were added to Freshmen Quad. To date, they have not yet been dedicated.

Freshmen are also housed in Wolman Hall on the other side of North Charles Street from Homewood. Sophomores are housed in McCoy Hall, across the street from Wolman Hall. Both buildings were previously apartment buildings that were bought by the university during the 1960s when enrollment at Johns Hopkins drastically increased. Both were refurbished in 1991 so that their initial capacity was more than doubled.

Sophomores may also live in the University owned Bradford Apartments, Homewood Apartments, or the Charles Commons Building, the university housing building which was officially opened in 2006. Charles Commons is a building complex reserved entirely for upperclassmen on 33rd Street, between North Charles and St. Paul Street. It is comprised of two towers connected by a bridge and houses 618 students and it includes a ballroom, laundry room, exercise facility, game room and lounges. On the ground floor of Charles Commons is the Johns Hopkins University Bookstore and the Homewood Branch of the Federal Credit Union. The opening of Charles Commons was seen as an important step toward insuring housing for juniors and seniors who want it.

Whenever there is an overflow of students who are required to live in on-campus housing, several buildings on North Charles Street are leased out by the university. At full capacity, all of Johns Hopkins dormitory buildings can house approximately 60% of undergraduates. Fortunately, there are many privately-owned apartment buildings around Homewood that are usually filled with Hopkins upperclassmen, so despite the lack of university-owned dormitories, housing is not particularly difficult to attain.

The University does not provide any Greek housing, though most fraternities maintain private residences off-campus.

Fraternities and Sororities

The Johns Hopkins University Office of Greek Life recognizes thirteen fraternities and seven sororities, which include as members approximately 20% of the student body. Greek life has been a part of the University culture since 1877, when Beta Theta Pi fraternity became the first Greek letter organization to form a chapter on campus. Sororities did not begin colonizing at Hopkins until 1982.

As of Fall 2009, 769 students were active members of one of the Johns Hopkins University fraternities or sororities and the All-Greek Average GPA was 3.29, above the average GPA for all Johns Hopkins University Undergraduates.[69]

All Johns Hopkins fraternities and sororities belong to one of four Councils: the North-American Interfraternity Conference, the National Panhellenic Conference, the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Multicultural Council.

The Inter-Fraternity Council includes eleven fraternities:

• ΑΔΦ - Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, chapter founded 1889.
• ΑΕΠ - Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, Psi chapter founded 1996. Jewish interest.
• ΒΘΠ - Beta Theta Pi fraternity, Alpha Chi chapter founded 1877.
• ΛΦΕ - Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity, chapter founded 1994. Asian-American interest.
• ΦΔΘ - Phi Delta Theta fraternity, Maryland Delta chapter founded 2009.
• FIJI - Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, Beta Mu chapter founded 1891.
• ΦΚΨ - Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, Maryland Alpha chapter founded 1879.
• ΠΚΑ - Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Iota Tau chapter founded 1994.
• ΣΑΕ - Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, chapter founded 1994.
• ΣΧ - Sigma Chi fraternity, Kappa Upsilon chapter founded 2002.
• ΣΦΕ - Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, Maryland Alpha chapter founded 1929.

The National Panhellenic Conference includes three sororities:

• ΑΦ - Alpha Phi sorority, Zeta Omicron chapter founded 1982.
• ΚΚΓ - Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Eta Epsilon chapter founded 1999.
• ΦM - Phi Mu sorority, Gamma Tau chapter founded 1982.

The National Pan-Hellenic Council includes two historically African-American groups:

• ΑΦΑ - Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Sigma Sigma chapter, unknown founding date.
• ΣΓP - Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, chapter founded 2009.

The Multicultural Council includes four groups:

• αΚΔΦ - alpha Kappa Delta Phi sorority, associate chapter founded 1997. Asian-American interest.
• ΔΞΦ - Delta Xi Phi sorority, Lambda chapter founded 2003. Multicultural interest.
• INΔ - Iota Nu Delta fraternity, chapter founded 2008. South Asian interest.
• ΣΟΠ - Sigma Omicron Pi sorority, Lambda chapter founded 2002. Asian-American interest.

Delta Phi Fraternity, also known as St. Elmo's, maintains a chapter exclusive to students at Johns Hopkins, though it is not recognized by the University's Office of Greek Life.

Kappa Alpha Theta, a National Panhellenic Conference sorority, was removed from campus by their national headquarters on April 14, 2009 after twelve years on campus.[70]

Recruitment for Inter-Fraternity Council and Panhellenic Conference fraternities and sororities takes place during the spring semester for freshmen, though some groups recruit upperclassmen during the fall semester. All students who wish to participate in Recruitment must have completed one semester in college and must be in good academic standing. National Pan-Hellenic and Multicultural fraternities and sororities may recruit freshmen in the fall semester.

Many of the fraternities maintain houses off campus, but none of the sororities do. There are unconfirmed press reports of a state "Brothel Law" prohibiting the cohabitation of more than eight women which may pose a barrier to such all-female housing units. The Johns Hopkins News-Letter even reported the existence of such a law in 2001.[71] Snopes.com reports that such laws do not exist.[72] Only Sigma Phi Epsilon owns a residence officially zoned by the City of Baltimore for use as a fraternity house.

Student publications

Hopkins has many publications that are produced entirely by students. The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, founded in 1896, is the oldest continuously published weekly college newspaper in the nation.[73] The Hopkins Donkey is a political newspaper with a Democratic perspective on international, national and state-wide political topics. The Carrollton Record is a political newspaper with an American conservative perspective on campus and city-wide politics.[74] Epidemic Proportions is the university's public health research journal, designed to highlight JHU research and field work in public health. Combining research and scholarship, the journal seeks to capture the breadth and depth of the JHU undergraduate public health experience.[75] Thoroughfare, Zeniada and j.mag are literary magazines. Prometheus is the undergraduate philosophy journal.[76] Frame of Reference is an annual magazine that focuses on film and film culture.[77] The New Diplomat is the multi-disciplinary international relations journal. Foundations is the undergraduate history journal.[78] Américas is the Latin American Studies journal. Argot is the undergraduate anthropology journal.[79] The Triple Helix is the university's journal to address issues concerning science, law and society.

The Black & Blue Jay is among the nation's oldest campus humor magazines. It was founded in 1920.[80]According to The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, it was the magazine's name which led the News-Letter to first use the moniker Blue Jays to refer to a Hopkins athletic team in 1923.[81]While the magazine enjoyed popularity among students, it received repeated opposition from the university administration, reportedly for its vulgar sense of humor. In October 1934, Dean Edward R. Berry removed financial support for the magazine; without funding, the magazine continued under the name The Blue Jay until Berry threatened to expel the editors in 1939. The magazine had a revival in 1984, and has published intermittently since then.[82]