When people find out I’m in Residence Life, I often get asked: “what are some of the wildest things you’ve seen?” It’s a common ice breaker question that many of us in the field, if not all, have been asked at least once. Roles and responsibilities vary across careers in Residence Life and different institutions, but there is always an undercurrent that connects us, something that even folks outside of the field of Higher Education know – we, in Residence Life, deal with some of the most zany and wonky situations one can imagine. We wear our stories like odd badges of honor and often try to one-up other Residence Life folks when we’re in space together. And while I have learned a great deal dealing with these situations, and I’ve collected so many stories I now pull out at social gatherings, I am of the firm belief that the Residence Life practice of being crisis responders needs to cease.
This blog series features different writers responding to the prompt, “What is one practice ResLife departments need to let go of?”
Consider this – an RD could feasibly have a weekend on-call where they deal with intoxications, mental health crises, Title IX incidents, feces being found in common areas, roommate mediations, the works! Over the course of just one weekend, the RD will have to put on so many different hats as they navigate wildly different situations, all while dealing with odd and irregular sleep patterns – if they can even get any sleep at all. And this doesn’t account for the report writing and follow-up that will occur once the dust settles. While we may be trained on these topics and how to respond (sans responding to the misplaced feces, I can’t say this with 100% certainty, but I don’t know of any institution that adequately prepares you to deal with rogue bodily excretions), no one can prepare you for the whiplash you experience jumping from situation to situation like that. This is why I think we need to stop being crisis responders – these are situations that rise above us, and there are folks out there who are better prepared to take on those situations.
I do understand the necessity of having our residential students supported. There is no question that needs to happen. I would posit though that we need to rethink our practices and restructure our models with our campus partners. I’ve often heard that folks in Residence Life are present in crisis situations to give our students a supportive authoritative presence that isn’t necessarily someone in a uniform. Heard. But can we not think of other folks who can do this? Folks who are better trained to support the situation at hand? I’ve seen a growing trend of mental health clinicians serving in an on-call rotation to support mental health crisis situations. That is the modality that we need to chase with our other fields of support. Can we not hire a Title IX professional to serve in the on-call rotation? Or what about an EMT that is solely dedicated to supporting residential students after-hours? This is the line of thinking I would love to see Universities develop.
You would be hard pressed to find a student that asks for an RD’s presence to begin with. Most times when I would respond to a crisis, I would either be ignored or be treated like I was in the way. Most students don’t know why we are there, medics would ignore us, and so on. I remember one of my supervisors in college telling me about an on-call situation she had. In the wee hours of a Saturday morning, she was summoned to a first year residence hall for a student crisis. Without thought she adorned a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt branded with a classic ‘80s hair metal band, and a pair of mismatched shoes. Amid dealing with the scene, she caught students filming her and laughing. There have been many nights where I have worn my own share of clashing clothes combinations, mixed with a haggard look on my face, and I always think back to that interaction, wondering if my presence will hit TikTok.
Responding to crises is a taxing and demanding part of the RD role. The drainage one can feel after a long weekend on-call is intense, and the disruption it can cause during the business day is frustrating. It also haunts you outside of the Residence Halls (just see a Res Life professional hear a cell phone go off with the same ringtone as their duty phone and you will understand). Without the burden of being on-call, or having to respond to crisis after crisis, we can better set our focus on supporting students in ways to which we are trained. Connecting students to community. Educating students. Fostering spaces where students belong.
While my days of scampering around campus at 3:00am, looking like a feral raccoon with bags under my eyes and bushy hair, are over, I still feel for those legions of Residence Life folks that are doing the work. Residence Life professionals offer so much to a campus and community, I just want to see a shift where those folks are not saddled with the burden of also being a crisis responder. I hope we find the day where the crisis response role is shared with our campus partners who are equipped and ready for the challenge. I like to think most Residence Life folks would agree. I know my boss who was filmed would agree.
