ResLife Needs To Let Go: Door Decs

Over the past year, I have spent a fair amount of time pondering the importance and value of door decs. As Res Life professionals, I know we love collecting all of our door decs from over the years and displaying them as badges of honor. However, I have started to wonder if our good efforts and hard work that go into making door decs for residents have the impact we strive for.

My pondering about door decs began when I started working for a new university that didn’t allow for RAs to write residents’ names on the door decs. The reasoning behind this was because A.) Some students have preferred names that are not reflected on the rosters the RAs are given. B.) Many students didn’t love their names being displayed on their doors for privacy and security reasons. Although this rationale is completely valid and is in support of our students, it resulted in the RAs spending lots of time crafting paper ice cream cones, minions, fires and marshmallows, and many more arbitrary items that would be hung up on the doors, only for residents to not really understand or get the purpose of. This got me thinking… How did the trend of door decs begin, and is the practice still valuable to the students we serve? 

After asking colleagues and trying to google how door decs began (which, not-so-surprisingly there isn’t a whole lot of information on) I realized that the main purpose of door decs was to help students build community. It’s nice for residents to have a welcoming decoration from their RA when they move in, know the names of their neighbors, and feel like they are valued community members. I just don’t know if di-cut, Cricut, and whatever other paper shapes, animals, and creative items are truly helping to build community. I asked my team of RAs what they thought about door decs, and collectively, we came up with a few ideas to make the intention of community building and door decs more powerful. 

One of our ideas was at the beginning of the semester when RAs had their floor meetings, they would explain to their residents what a door dec is. We gave all residents a door dec where they could opt into writing their name, intended major, hometown, hobbies, and social media accounts on it. We recognized that many students were looking for friends that had similar classes as them, or potentially wanted to join the same club together. Additionally, we recognized that many students were putting their Snapchat and Instagram handles on their doors already, so why not give them a space where they could build this connection with others? At the floor meetings, the RAs gave their residents time to complete these door decs, and they were used as an ice-breaker opportunity for residents to find similarities and differences between each other. With the door decs being explained by the RAs as an opportunity to get to know one another and make friends, more students were excited to display their door decs and had a greater understanding of this practice. 

A close colleague also joined my journey in finding the importance of a door dec. They agreed that many of the residents didn’t understand why they had a door dec, and the RAs were putting a lot of effort into a task that wasn’t being fully appreciated. This colleague made hundreds of door decs for move-in that were individualized for students to choose from and decorate their doors with. The door decs included different sports and hobbies residents could choose from, we have many out-of-state students so all 50 states were made into door decs that residents could put on their door, along with all of the different areas of study and majors students could pick up a personalized door dec for. These door decs that displayed the individuality of our residents were a big hit with the students, and soon the doors in this community started becoming scrapbooks of the different personalities living throughout the hall. 

With both of these efforts to make door-decs more impactful, we realized that students began to love collecting door decs and wanted more of them. My colleague and I are still in the beginning stages of working this out, but we are starting to make different door decs for the events we hold within our Residence Halls. This has encouraged students to come to more events because they love “collecting” more door decs that they can put on display. Along with Residence Education professionals who love to collect their door decs as badges of honor, our students began to value and enjoy collecting and displaying door decs related to their personalities and showing off how many they have collected. 

If you were to ask me a few months ago, I probably would have said that one practice Res Life departments need to let go of is door decs. However, after my year of pondering and trying to make door decs more impactful, I have changed my thought process into thinking that arbitrary door decs without explanation are the practice that needs to go. Students want to build community, make friends, and get to know one another, and door decs are an effective way to do this. Yet, students also want to be the decision-makers on what goes on their door, how their name is displayed, if they even want their name displayed on their door, and having a door with decorations that aren’t random, but rather reflect who they are. Res Life departments choosing to print and make arbitrary items for students to have their names on is not helping students build community and is a practice to be let go over. However, with some intentionality, explanation, and allowing students to be a part of the decision process on what is displayed on their door, door decs are a fun practice and help communities thrive.