This blog series features different writers responding to the prompt, “What is the future of the RD position and role?”
Guest Post by John Kendall, Residence Life Professional
What is the future of the RD Role? I love this question for many reasons. But first, what does that even mean anymore? A Resident Director (RDs for short) is typically a housing professional who management of 1-2 residence halls and supervises its student staff. Many schools have dissolved their Resident Director position in favor of an Area Coordinator or Residence Life Coordinator model. Some schools have kept RDs as a student staff position or have dissolved it entirely. So where does this leave the RD position in the future? Let’s dig into it.
Many small schools have dissolved their RD roles in favor of Area Coordinators (ACs for short). Instead of having 1 Residence Director for 1 or 2 complexes. Many ACs oversee up to 5 or 6 areas of campus and manage several student staff, upwards of 25 student staff per AC. If an AC overseas 1 hall, they tend to take on extra responsibilities.
Other schools are moving to having Residence Life Coordinators. Residence Life Coordinators typically manage a specific set of their housing office’s responsibilities. This can include a combination of responsibilities such as student staff supervision, major campus events, greater housing programming, recruitment & selection, training, social media & marketing, conduct, billing, room assignments, and more.
Some schools still have Resident Directors at their school but they exist solely on a student staff or graduate staff level. These elevated roles serve as an elevated staff who is normally the first chain of command for an emergency situation. These students get training to make sure they understand the protocol of emergency response and how to handle the more elevated responsibilities. They typically rotate a phone that gets called before calling the professional on-call. This alleviates some of the stress of the professional staff on-call and allows them to have a life even when on-call.
As I have said above, some schools have simply dissolved this position. People are asking for more benefits and schools cannot meet the need with a large number of RD positions. Housing professionals are seeking flex time, in-unit washers and dryers, parking spaces, meal plans, work-from-home capabilities, and fair wages. Schools are doing their best to accommodate these needs, but to do so, they have to rework their housing professional staff model. As schools are facing budget crisis after budget crisis, positions get cut and merged. Responsibilities are consistently shifting. All of these factors are contributing to the downfall of the RA role.
As schools are changing their professional staff model, I am also noticing a shift in titles. As I have said, RDs are being replaced with ACs and RLCs. That is because language matters. People want a title that reflects the work they do. In the next 10-20 years, I see the RD role dissolving more and more. RDs could end up being a title of the years passed. There will always be Residence Halls, but how they are managed and coordinated will continue to shift based on the needs of the residents. Housing professionals do more than direct residence halls. We often talk about how, in housing, we wear many hats. The shift in positions and titles is more
reflective of newer titles than simple “Resident Director.” I believe we will see more titles such as AC, RLC, and even more titles as the position changes to meet the needs of the students.
