In this episode of ResEdChat, join our host Noah Montague and guest Keresa Murray, Resident Director at Ohio University as they talk about navigating conflict in the Residence Halls. Far too often, students and people at large avoid conflict whether it be out of fear, polarization, or even safety. That said, conflict and navigating disagreement are a crucial part of life and thus a crucial part of the residential experience that is important for us to talk about and reflect on as residence life professionals. In this episode, Keresa and Noah explore the talk about conflict management, share impactful stories, and provide practical advice to Residence Life Staff.
Guest: Keresa Murray (she/her/hers), Resident Director, Ohio University
Host: Noah Montague
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Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Noah Montague:
Welcome back to Roompact’s ResEd Chat podcast, a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. So my name is Noah Montague and I use he/him/his pronouns. And today I’m going to be your host. If you’ve been listening to my podcast for a bit, you know that I like to say that I’m a storyteller at heart and by trade and the stories that I choose to tell are those that center the college student experience and the college experience at a whole, which makes me all the more excited about today’s topic. So today we’re going to be talking about conflict and how we help students in our roles work through those conflicts. In society at large, let alone in the residence halls people are hesitant to engage in conflict, whether it be fear, polarization, or even safety. That said, conflict and navigating disagreement are a crucial part of life and thus a crucial part of the residential experience that it is so important for us to be talking about and reflecting on as residence life professionals. With that, I am joined by a guest today that I am so unbelievably excited to have with us here today. So I’m going to turn it over to her to introduce herself.
Keresa Murray:
Hi everyone. My name is Keresa Murray. I use she/her pronouns. I’m currently a resident director at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. But way back in 2019, I had the pleasure of being an RA under Noah at Miami University. So I’m glad that we are reunited.
Noah Montague:
Truly, me too. I thought this would be such a fun thing to just have a conversation with someone who we worked together so closely, but also just how much of our experience was impacted by COVID and how much of our experience then changed with conflicts in the hall as that. And I imagine those will come up a little bit in our conversation today as well. But I think to get us started then thinking about conflict, why is it such an important part of the learning experience in residence halls? Why is conflict such an important thing for us to be talking about?
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. I think it’s interesting. I know being at a school, we have a two-year live on requirement and a lot of students usually question why we’re requiring them to live on campus, but I think it’s so important that we have those life skills. A hidden curriculum of things that they’re supposed to be learning, just living among their peers. So I think there’s a lot of things that they can’t get in the classroom. I think you get some conflict when you’re doing group projects and things, but I think a lot of it boils down to when you are literally trying to live, sleep, study, do all those things in a likely small quarter space. But yeah. I think there’s truly a lot of things that people can walk away from, whether they had the worst roommate experience or the best roommate experience or even just living in a single as well. I think that is also being in the community sphere. I think a lot of it … There’s just no other experience, I think similar on college than living in a residence hall.
So I think we provide a very unique structure with curriculum and making sure they’re learning about who they are, like their identity. I think a lot of that growth can come just based on the community and the types of programs that we’re doing. But again, you mentioned safety. We usually let them know the resources that are available to them on campus, work with them. But there’s a lot that can happen in the residence halls I think people don’t realize.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. Definitely. Something that you might remember that I would say often and that I continue to say is that anything that can happen to a human being can happen while they’re living in a residence hall. And that includes disagreement, that includes conflict. And that’s something that I find myself thinking about a lot, especially now with some of the conflicts that I’ve seen come up in my hall. I talked about this a little bit in my introduction and some of what you shared is making me think about this as well. And that conflict is such a part of life and we pretend it isn’t. As students are learning who they are, they aren’t going to have internal conflicts, and to your own point, students are learning about themselves while they’re living with us. And that unspoken residential curriculum type of thing that is happening in that as students live in the halls, they’re learning more about themselves, which then will lead to conflict with other people, with their roommates, with themselves in a lot of different ways. And I think that acknowledging that is so important in that students are going to have conflict to that very point.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. Especially thinking back to our time together. It was an election year as well. So a lot of those things … It’s like students are choosing to express themselves with their political ideology and that showed up in the room whether it was people having books or flags or just different things and it made people uncomfortable because I don’t think we embrace having the uncomfortable conversation a lot of the times. Some things are a lot in your face, there are those types of things, but I’m seeing a lot more passive-aggressive things and a lot of people not wanting to have those types of confrontation. So they just build and build and build until I get an email and having to … So it’s very interesting that people I think are moving … I don’t know if it’s just a lack of standing up for themselves or we’re just too nonchalant that people let things go until they get there. But like you said, the residence halls is just a part of their experience. So a lot of these issues that people are going through are interfering with their life as students, they’re not able to sleep, they don’t feel like they have a place to come back to where they’re able to relax and I think that’s when it really gets to them and they’re realizing like, okay, I need to do something with this conflict. It’s getting to a point.
Noah Montague:
I think that leads us pretty well into my next question to talk about and what do we mean when we say that conflict can be developmental?
Keresa Murray:
I see a lot of people say just straight up, I don’t like don’t confrontation. I don’t like doing these things.
Noah Montague:
So often.
Keresa Murray:
So often. I don’t know if it’s because of COVID. I don’t know if it’s because people are too online or they’re more comfortable texting someone or Snapchat or Instagram DMing them about things. I see so many people have different forms of group chats for their rooms, but it’s like people are leaving notes. They’re not just saying things in the moment either. So I don’t know if there’s just been a gap in conflict or if I’m just seeing it more this year, but in general, people don’t know how to communicate with each other. I think that’s the biggest thing. I think when it comes to community, when it comes to just life in college … I don’t know. It seems like everyone wants to have such a tightness community, but they don’t know how to do it. So same thing, people want to coexist with their roommates or even be friends with their roommates, but there’s something that’s getting in the way.
Yeah. I think a lot of the developmental piece is just knowing how to talk to a stranger, how to introduce yourself, how to make friends. Because I think our phones and technology is playing such a huge part in how we are communicating that people don’t need to talk face to face anymore, let alone speak up about something that’s bothering them in fear that they’re going to either hurt someone’s feelings or they think it’s easier if they just stay quiet. So I think there’s a lot of … Conflict can lead to many things. I think a lot of people are afraid of that, but I think there’s opportunity in having a conversation whether that’s being like, “Okay. Hey, it’s not as bad as I thought.” Or letting people be aware of some of their own behaviors that they’re causing harm to someone else.
Noah Montague:
For sure.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. It’s really just a big opportunity window when it comes to conflict, especially at this level where I think could really shape their young adult experience too.
Noah Montague:
I think your point about communication is so huge because I’m definitely seeing it too. And students not necessarily wanting to have these types of conversations or feeling prepared to in a lot of different ways. And I do think it is COVID. I do think it’s a lot of different things. I work with upper class students in full. I don’t work with first year students. But we are living in the time period where I believe that my students COVID hit for real when they were in eighth grade. So they had their entirety of high school impacted in some capacity by the pandemic. I have some students who did their entirety of high school online and how that impacted conflict management, I don’t think we even know yet if I’m completely honest.
But thinking about this question and conflict being developmental in my current job, one of the theories that we teach within my living learning community, we focus very heavily on leadership development and what that looks like. And one of those theories, the social change model of leadership development argues that conflict is a necessary part of being a leader and one of its tenets of conflict and civility and navigating conflict safely and respectfully and disagreeing safely is a necessary part of being a leader. And we work into that. So that is one way that I see that be a direct fully developmental space. And one of the main theories I use in my work centers this idea that to be a leader you have to address conflict and that comes up a lot and I watch it be so uncomfortable.
A couple of weeks ago we did an activity where they had … They stood on two different sides of the room and students were given questions that they had to pick a side of the room on which side they agreed with and then not argue, but explain their side without arguing. And all of them immediately jumped to arguing because that was the only way they knew how to address disagreement. And one of them finally caught themselves the wait, wait, I’m not supposed to argue. I’m just supposed to say what I think. And that feels really weird to me. And then we got to reflect and do a lot of cool stuff after that. But that is something that’s really coming to mind for me right now, both in what you said and just thinking about this question.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. I think people are very fast to get defensive when it comes to their opinions. And that’s the thing is when I’m meeting with one-on-one that are a part of larger roommate or we have suites here, so two rooms that share a bathroom, like suite mate conflicts. Everyone’s first thing is I don’t want to mediate, it’s not going to be helpful. And it’s because the conversations that they’re having are already hostile and aggressive. Think that being in a room that is not their room facilitated by someone like me or with an RA, it’s going to be different because we are facilitating the conversation, we’re setting up boundaries, we’re making expectations and we’re not interrupting each other. Whereas in their room, I feel like I’ve had situations where people are almost getting into physical fights about very small things because I think that might be the only way they know how to express what they’re trying to convey.
And like you said, people are quick to argue, they’re quick to go back and forth. I’ve seen very just tit for tat petty things that okay, I’m only do this because you’re doing it. And I even had people in my office say like, “Heck, I know this is childish, but this is where we’re at at this point.” So it’s been very interesting to take people out of that space. I have a lot of ongoing roommate conflicts, so I’ll be curious to see once we actually get to mediation phase, what that looks like. But we’re also seeing a lot of people avoid mediation so much that they’re just moving. And I don’t know how helpful that is too. Some of them, I think a conversation is a good conversation regardless if it still ends in a move. I think it’s important to be able to express how you’re feeling to someone that you live so closely with and you might not be best friends at the end of it or even be able to stay in the same space. And I think that’s when it’s easier and more justifiable to move someone. But I just think it’s going to create a pattern where, okay, I’m going to move you and maybe a few months down the line, you and your new roommate now are going to get into another conflict about something else because maybe you never had that chance to have that developmental conversation.
But a lot of people also think I’m in the power to just move people too. They’re like, “I just want things to be fixed.” They don’t want things to be worked on. This is not just something I can do. Yeah. It’s just been very, very interesting. I literally had back to back roommate things. I think every day I have an RA come and say, “Hey, so this thing is going on.”
Noah Montague:
I am so sorry.
Keresa Murray:
I have a long list of, okay, so could people come in? I’m like, “Hey, is this about the noise? Is this about the bathroom? Is this about the lights?”
Noah Montague:
Which thing are we talking about today?
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. Yeah. And they’re all at different stages of different things. They’ve all escalated to various levels, but this semester, there really hasn’t been, I’m glad we had this conversation thing because we haven’t even made it that far. People are cheating to, I don’t want. I can’t talk to them. So it’s been very interesting. I don’t know what your experience has been with conflict.
Noah Montague:
Every situation is different. Every student that we work with is different and how they respond to things are different. And I think that you asked my next question almost for me, so thank you for that. Going about it that way. But thinking about some common forms of conflict you’ve seen, you already spoke about this a little bit and some of the stuff that’s been coming up in your hall. And maybe if you could share a story of a time that you did help a student work through a conflict and what that looked like.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. Trying to think of past things. I don’t know currently where we’re right now with a lot of mine. But just some of the common things that people are coming to me with is just either difference in lifestyle. I think we see that a lot in college. Some students are strictly here, they want to study. They don’t care about any other distractions that other students like to do, so they’re coming back later. So they’re turning on the lights late at night when people are trying to sleep or they have guests that people don’t want. So there’s just been a lot of lack of courtesy for others where some students are very much like, “Yeah, if I come back late, I’m going to tiptoe in the room. I’m going to use my phone flashlight to get my stuff ready for bed.” People are coming in, slamming the doors, they don’t care, turn on the lights. There’s just been a lot of things. And most of them have been little life things. Like again, turn on the light and then it’s night people are trying to sleep and having guest over are not something that you’ll experience outside of the residence hall in college. But like I said, these things escalate.
So I’ll go back. My first year working … So all of my rooms are triples, so three people. And usually we see a two against one dynamic either because people lived in a double together last year, they wanted to live together, so now they’re living in my building and they have a random roommate come in. So that off the bat can create a weird dynamic when people are having fights or arguments. I’ve seen a lot this year of one versus one and one person that’s trying to either remain neutral or play both sides to try and help so like a built-in mediator but it’s just been really interesting.
So my first year we had a resident who was just undergoing a lot of just intense mental health things and it was really impacting the roommate dynamic. The RA did a lot of work and tried to meet with them individually together, put a lot of hours into this conflict, eventually brought them all together with myself and the RA. It came more of a place of care that I think. So they were having either these really intense arguments in the space, but I think once they all got together, they realized it was coming from, we’re just concerned, we want you to get help for yourself, and it’s hard for us to see you in this situation when you’re not doing anything to better yourself. But it just built up so much and led to this thing.
And I think that can be a lot because some people immediately feel judged for whatever it is that they’re going through. I left that mediation … It was very a wholesome thing. It was like, “We’re doing this because we care.” They all were talking about their own insecurities that they have, and it was just a very nice thing to be a part of that had been going on for so long.
Let the student know that maybe I will revisit going to counseling on campus. I feel like I will do the XYZ things for myself. It was nice to see them come together like that. I know not every story is like that, but I think some people are missing that because they’re not even getting to that point because skipping the conversation altogether or they’re immediately going to the arguing stage and you did this, why are you doing this? Not, I feel these ways, this is what I’m experiencing. But people don’t like getting feedback or criticism. I don’t like getting feedback. I think it’s how you react to and how you choose to respond. And knowing that everyone’s perfect living together can bring out a lot of different things. And sometimes for people, it’s the first time they’re living … So it’s a lot.
But that situation ended up coming out nicely. I can’t remember specifically, but again, even then things can … It’s hard when you have such a nice thing and then two weeks later it comes back up and things are going a mess. It’s so important I think since we have upper class students, because next year they’re going to live off campus in an apartment in a house, and they’re no one there. There’s no RA that’s living in your college house with you. I don’t know. I think it’s very important that we send people off well or whatever their next year’s lead. But yeah. I think a lot of people are just misunderstanding and it is either just something greater or something that they’re not willing to be vulnerable and have those conversations about.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. I love that example. It got into the whole point of why we even do mediations in residence life. And to get them to actually talk about what’s going on and to the point that you talked about, they communicated about we’re worried about you is what that conversation ended up being. And to hear such a positive outcome, that’s so exciting. And you are right. Those are rare.
Keresa Murray:
Those are rare.
Noah Montague:
But to think of had they not had that opportunity to be able … Had they not engaged with that opportunity to actually say what was going on and to express their concern, what a cool experience. So thank you for sharing that with me.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
In my experience with roommate conflicts, my current institution … And this is how we are. We are very, very, very willing to move students if that becomes the problem. And I do think that is based in the same thing, in being conflict avoidant and, or we’re willing to move students as a structure. That is a thing that we have. So I recently had a situation with two students and one of them was just very directly refusing to talk. The other one was like, “I would very much like to talk about these issues that we’re having. I have nothing against them. I want to talk about what’s going on.” And truly and completely, I got an email back that said, “No. I do not want to talk. I am disinterested in having a conversation.” I had to weigh a lot of things in that this is a student who is very openly telling me they’re not willing to change anything that they’re doing. They’re not willing to even have a conversation about it. And in those situations it can be more harmful to engage in that. If a student’s not willing to talk, what really can we do in that space? Because then they’re not willing to come to any compromise or had any conversation.
But maybe a more positive example, a few years ago I did have a similar conversation that resulted in two students coming into my office, us having a conversation. And it turned out that one of them was going through a pretty significant mental health concern and we were able to get that person help that would not have come had we not had that mediation and seen what actually was going on because is it they’re not cleaning or is it something’s wrong and this person is acting differently than they were acting previously? Something is going on here and that I’ve seen be really successful on my end.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. I even think when it comes to students of concern, the people that are bringing it up are the people that live with them every day. And I think that is the nice thing, and I encourage my RAs too to … You are the first person that they’re likely going to go to in a situation that comes up so it’s important that you make yourself known as a resource that you are warm and inviting so that people know that you can help. But those are the people that are seeing, okay, hey, they’ve been skipping class, they have food all over the place, they’re not doing their laundry. Those are the people that are giving us those warning signs of like, “Hey, something is not right. I’m concerned.” They’re the same people that see people come back after a night out and they’re like, “I don’t know what’s going on. They’re not acting like themselves.” It’s helpful because when students do speak up and they do come forward and tell us these things, they’re still doing it from a, I don’t want to get them in trouble. Don’t tell them that I told you. And it’s like, it’s okay to know that people care about you.
Same thing with mediations. Like, “Okay. Can you not tell them that it was me that wanted to have this mediation?” I was like, “There’s no shame in wanting to bring people together.” So it is still something I think, I don’t know how exactly to convey to students, but I’m like, conflict is okay. The whole thing we’re talking about is conflict is okay and it’s okay to want to have a better living situation for yourself and just to speak up and do that. So yeah.
Noah Montague:
It’s okay to want to have a better living situation if that is … That goes back to communication of it all too. A student coming to us because their roommate’s going out all the time and they don’t like that versus my roommate’s going out all the time and I’m worried about them. That’s a different phrasing of the same thing. I don’t know. That’s sticking out to me in this moment.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. It’s been very interesting. Yeah. I don’t know what’s in the air this semester, but there’s been just a lot more-
Noah Montague:
There’s been a lot going on.
Keresa Murray:
And there also are the funny ones too.
Noah Montague:
Oh, for sure.
Keresa Murray:
A resident was being loud. So they come to the RA, “Hey, I don’t know what to do. They’re being loud.” RA literally says, “Have you told them that they’re being loud and that you want them to be quieter?” “No, I haven’t tried that.” And then he checked in a few weeks later and they were like, “How’s things going?” “Oh, yeah. After I let them know they were being loud, they stopped being loud.” So people are … They’re asking for help, but they’re also missing a very important baseline step. I see that a lot when it comes to … We have living agreements that we have students fill out.
Noah Montague:
We do too.
Keresa Murray:
So we have roommate agreements and we have suite mate agreements because we know the bathroom can also be a struggling point-
Noah Montague:
A sticking point at times.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. So the people that I’m meeting with, oftentimes they never filled out their roommate agreement. So it’s like not only are you coming to me, you’ve never had a conversation about guests or noise or expectations in the room so it’s not surprising. Or people fill them out with very unrealistic expectations. People say in there, okay, we can borrow anything we want from each other when something happens, we’re going to talk to each other in person. And they’re just not doing that. They’re immediately going to the RA, RA’s reaching out. It’s been important to flip the script. How would you feel if the RA reaches out to you rather than maybe your roommate who lives next to you? So we’re giving-
Noah Montague:
I’ve seen that be helpful as well.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. We’re giving the resources to people to set it up for success, living with another person, and if they’re not going to fill it out, they’re missing that whole point. It’s not a natural thing. I think to sometimes be to have those conversations, which is why we built it into the experience. Yeah. When are we taking the trash out? Is when it’s full a good thing? Who’s taking the trash out? It’s always the same person. So it’s like we create those things. And I have my RAs do those at their first floor meetings and hunt people down until they do because it does come back whether it’s not until November, but it’s like we see people like, “Okay. It’s building and you never had the initial conversation anyways, so what did you think was going to happen if we’re not setting these things in place and just communicating with each other.”
Noah Montague:
Yeah. The communication really is what it feels like is missing in so many ways. You talked about the student coming directly to your RA before even thinking of telling their roommate, Hey, could you quiet down? I had a situation a couple of years ago where a student came to me and just casually said, “Yeah, my roommate took my $200 headphones and I guess he can just have them. I don’t want to cause problems. It’s fine.” And when I brought up, “Hey, that that’s theft,” that seemed like a surprise to him almost that that was the conversation that I then began having with him. And that it was someone took something and he didn’t want to cause a problem enough that he would rather just get a new pair. That’s an extreme example, but it’s one that really sticks with me. The fear of confrontation that we’re seeing or the fear in, Hey, can I have my thing that I bought back? And that being a real thing continues to confound me I think in a lot of different ways in going straight to a staff member before even trying to have that conversation. But I think to wrap us up then today, what is a piece of advice that you might have to new professionals looking to better help their students and maybe their staff as well, their RAs in navigating conflict?
Keresa Murray:
Yeah. The nice thing is letting RAs know, listening goes a long way. I don’t need you to solve the problem, but just being able to remain in a neutral stance of where you’re literally just listening to both sides. You’re helping them reach something. You find out you don’t really have to do a whole lot. I think it’s important that they know their resources. They know that if things escalate, they can get me involved or another pro staff or they can offer a room change request. We can always do that. That’s always something that people can fill out if it is not something that’s able to be worked on. So I know there’s the listening to understand versus listening to respond. I know I am a helper naturally, and it can be hard just to listen to someone, hear them out and also just put things back on you. So being like, “Okay. What would a perfect roommate situation look like for you?” Or, “What would successful mediation look like if I were to bring you all together? What outcome do you want in this situation?” I think it puts it back on them when it comes to residents just wanting us to solve all of their problems.
So being able just to listen. I think sometimes again, some things can be very little and especially when I’m having all these different things come up every week, I could have little patience. But I think it’s important to remember too that whatever’s going on is big to them. So whether it’s like, okay, the lights are on … Something little. It’s like this has truly become so awful that this person is not sleeping in their room. They’re going to friends’ houses or on the phone with their parents. They’ve done all these other things because of something that is small. So I think just putting yourself in their shoes sometimes is helpful because something that is very small is their whole world right now. The jobs that we do, the thing that we’re able to provide to people is literally part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and that is very fundamental to the work that we’re doing. I think that’s helpful to remind myself is some of these things can be a lot, but we are getting people either into better situations or allowing them to have those developmental conversations where they’re really getting to the root of the problem and being able to walk away and be like, okay, that wasn’t as bad as it is, and they can apologize to people and move forward.
So as far for student staff, it can be very overwhelming to think about okay … Especially within my building, again, you could be meeting with six people if it’s a disagreement in the bathroom, a lot of people. But to realize, okay, all your job is you’re going to keep them in line in terms of, okay, we’re not going to interrupt people. We’re going to do these things. But ultimately you are just giving them a space where they can just speak freely and sometimes solve their own problem. You are just guiding them along the path. But I think if we really get overwhelmed, it’s probably because we’re taking on too much responsibility when it’s just supposed to be facilitating fly on the wall as they have their own conversation.
Noah Montague:
For sure. Yeah. I definitely agree with everything you’ve said, particularly thinking about that neutrality piece is so huge when we go into these spaces. That said, there are some situations like the example I gave where someone’s stole something. I’m like, I make up an effort to tell my RAs, “Hey, if a student did something that they cannot do, whether it be against policy or legally, you can tell them that.” And that I think has been a bit of a sticking point in my department in that neutrality, we have to be neutral. It’s important because students should be figuring out their own thing. And if one of them broke the law, we do have to talk about that with that. I think it’s a little nuance there. And you own point of listening is just so … I think we underestimate how important listening is, even though the thing that we’re really talking about today is communication, and we’re encouraging students to listen to each other and talk to each other. And the biggest piece of advice I’d give to staff is to be doing the same thing with your staff, with your co-workers, with your students to be able to really address and get to the root of what these problems actually are.
I guess that just about wraps up our time together today. Keresa, thank you so much for joining me. I had so much fun. I hope you did too.
Keresa Murray:
Yeah.
Noah Montague:
And thank you all for joining us this episode of ResEd Chat. If you have an idea for a topic or a person that you’d like us to have on the show, please let us know by reaching out to Roompact. And until I see you next time, keep taking care of yourselves y’all. Bye for now.
