In this episode of Roompact’s ResEdChat, join our host Noah Montague and guest Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins as they talk about student staff supervision. Student staff, RAs, or whatever other acronym your institution uses are all coming into the role for different reasons; so how can we best supervise them? How do we hold them accountable while also being understanding and supportive? These are important questions for every Residence Life Staff member to be considering and some of the questions Noah and Siobhàn think about as well. Join them as they answer these, share stories, and offer practical advice to Residence Life staff looking to learn more about supervision.
Guest: Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins (she/her), Assistant Director of Residence Life, Vermont State 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 ResEdChat 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 or watching my episodes for a while, you know that I like to say that I am a storyteller at heart, and these stories that I choose to tell are ones that center the student and the college student experience, which makes me all the more excited as always about today’s topic.
So today we’re going to be talking about supervision and things to consider when supporting, advocating for, and of course supervising student staff in our residence halls. Student staff, which I’ll likely be referring to as RAs in this video as that’s my acronym of choice for sure, are all coming into the role for different reasons. They have different priorities, different ideas, different goals within the job. So how can we best supervise them as Residence Life professionals? How do we hold them accountable while also being understanding and supportive? How do we be the supervisors that they need us to be? So these are important questions for every Residence Life professional to be considering and some of the questions that we’re going to be talking about today as well.
So with that, I’m going to let my guest introduce herself to you all today.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Well, thank you so much. My name is Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins. For those of you who are listening, do not worry if you mispronounce my name. It’s from Scotland. Everyone does. I am an assistant director of Residence Life at Vermont State University in the obviously gorgeous state of Vermont. I have been in higher education for just over eight years now with five years specifically with Res Life. But throughout all of my experience, I’ve been supervising student staff, specifically also with leadership students, so student government, resident assistants. So since they’re RAs, I use the same way, so perfect. I’ll use RA too. And also public safety student staff.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you, Siobhàn, for being here. But to get us started in thinking about this idea and talking about supervision, thinking about your specific supervision style, how would you define effective student staff supervision?
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Well, one thing I have always thought of throughout both my higher education and also just my own education is that staff at a university, we are educators.
Noah Montague:
Yeah.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
People might not necessarily think of that. “Oh, you type on a computer, you put students into a certain room. That’s not educating.” We do so much of that between life skills, life management. And I think for students in particular, or for our student staff, it’s really important for us to be an educator. And I kind of like to describe myself as both a coach and a teacher. It’s very much my goal, is to promote my students and make them the best possible individuals they can be. And typically when you have student staff, you only have them for one to two, maybe three years if you’re lucky.
Noah Montague:
Yeah, if you’re lucky.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
If you’re lucky. I had three RAs just graduate who are all three-year RAs, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I keep asking them, “Do you have to graduate? Can you come back one more year?” Nope, they graduated.
So yeah, just being able to find your way to be an educator. And what does that really mean? Maybe it’s something in the moment, maybe it’s something specifically with Res Life. “Oh, your bulletin board, Noah, isn’t that great. How can we produce your bulletin board to be more effective for your residents?” Or in other cases it’s, “Hey, I’ve noticed you’re struggling in one of your academic courses. What do you need? How can I help you? Do you know how to get academic support? Do you know what academic support is?” So really just having a plethora of knowledge and all this big, vast information and being able to pinpoint exactly what your RA needs in the moment, which is not easy. It’s why also I wanted to talk about this. This is a very hard task.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. And it kind of has to be. And in the sense that I mentioned already, every single RA coming into this role is looking for something different out of it. So our responsibility then becomes figuring out what that is to how to support them and what they need as an individual and what their goal and the role is. For some RAs, it’s going to be the paycheck. And for some it might be wanting to support students. Some it might be want to develop. Some it might be wanting to go into the field. So thinking about all of those things is something I think about a lot.
But something that you mentioned particularly is this idea of Residence Life staff as educators. And that’s something that I think I want to follow up on and go a little bit deeper into because that’s something that I hold so deeply, both in that when I’m talking to my family and trying to explain what my job is, saying educator or teacher is usually the easiest way to explain it. But I think the point that you’re making in we need to be educators and think about ourselves in that way and that our RAs are looking to learn and looking to understand and looking to be able to navigate the role and navigate the university. And something else that you said about being able to guide them to the places and being able to answer their questions, that is education and that is being an educator. So I really love that answer.
I think for me, effective student staff supervision shows up when my staff come to me to tell me they made a mistake, that I don’t have to figure it out. But when a staff member comes to me and is like, “Hey Noah, I messed up. How can we fix this?” That is, okay, I’ve created a space where this human trusts me enough to tell me they made a mistake and they trust me as an educator to help them fix it. And getting to that point is a million steps and building trust and talking and creating that relationship. But that’s what effective staff supervision looks like to me in practice.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Absolutely. And I remember when I first started in Res Life, even not necessarily they’re coming up to me, “Siobhàn, I messed up, can you help me?” Other end, when the student comes up to you with exciting news. I will never forget this moment. I know it’s a bit of an off-topic, but this is one of my-
Noah Montague:
No, please.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
… favorite success stories. It was late April, my first year in Res Life. I moved to a new institution. I was at a new place. It still felt like I was learning my way. And I was in the dining hall, and of course it’s the end of April, commencement’s coming up, students are moving out, everything’s going crazy. And one of my RAs saw me across dining hall and ran up to me going, “Siobhàn, Siobhàn, Siobhàn.” And my brain’s going, “What happened?”
Noah Montague:
“What happened? What happened?”
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
They were on duty last night. I also have the public safety background, so my brain is going crisis. They were like, “I got the job.” And I almost dropped my food because they were so excited to come up and tell me that they got a job for after their graduation. And all I could do is I put my food down, I gave them this big hug, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, congratulations.” And then we talked for 10 minutes during my 30-minute lunch that I had.
And at the moment, as I was walking back to my office, all of that stress I had just disappeared. I was like, “This is why I do what I do.” And I remember going and telling my colleagues, “You guys aren’t going to believe that they came up to me and they told me this.” And they were like, “Oh.” And I didn’t know at the time my office had this little tradition of the first big thing that happened with us. So someone wrote it down as that was my-
Noah Montague:
Oh, that’s so sweet.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
My first big thing was that a student came to me, and I also realized that I became that staff member that they needed. And that to me is also a huge definition of success when they’re so excited to tell you.
Noah Montague:
I love that so much. I’m very privileged to be able to share several things with that too. But I think thinking about that, because what we’re talking about is trust and building trust with our staff and creating that environment where they feel like they can come to us for the good things and the bad things. But how do you establish that trust with your student staff?
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
That’s a great question because you could say all the things like, “Oh, just come talk to me,” but that doesn’t really mean anything. For me, that really comes to the RA one-on-one. And one thing I would love to promote for this podcast is really spending time planning your first one-on-one with your RAs. And what I mean by that is don’t talk about Res Life. I know every institution is slightly different, but for generally, you just went through two or three weeks of RA training. They know their job, they know their expectations, they know their residents, and if there’s something going on, you’re going to already know about it. “Hey, Siobhàn and Noah are roommates, and they’re really not getting along and I don’t know how to help them.” You already know about that. They’re not going to wait until your one-on-one.
So what I really like to do is make that moment about the RA. Ask them… Sure, you’re going to know their major, but ask them things of what are they interested in? Kind of as you went back, every RA has their own different reasons. They’re like, “Hey, you already have the job. You don’t need to butter it. Why are you really an RA, off the record?” And learning things about their interests, their motivations, why they took this particular major. And you really start to get to know your RA and making those little connections.
One, a great example I had was one of my RAs and their first one, their phone went off and it was a Hazbin Hotel song was their ringtone. I love that show. So I started singing the songs and they were like, “Really? You’re into this?” And it’s just become a little thing. Didn’t necessarily blossom into a friendship. And you don’t necessarily want to be friends with your RAs, you want to have that professional background. But it was enough to where when the second series, or sorry, season came out, we were able to rebuild that connection of, “Oh, are you ready? I can’t wait.” And it was right before an academic break. So my RA’s like, “I haven’t watched it. I’ve been focusing. Wait till after break and we’ll talk about it.”
So I really like to do with my first one-on-ones, my main goal is to just get to know the RAs on a one-on-one basis, learn what things they’re interested in, see how I can make those small connections or even major ones. And then I ask them, “What is your goal for the semester for the academic year?” And I give my RAs a warning this in training. I’m like, “Hey, at your first meeting, I’m going to ask you a goal and I’m going to help them develop it into that SMART goal framework, specific, measurable. Oh my goodness, the A, achievable, realistic, timely.” That sort of-
Noah Montague:
I’m glad you remembered because I was not going to get to that A.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Oh, well, I would say there’s three or four As, but that’s the one I already know is achievable. And we talk about it and we work on developing. And I don’t make it necessarily about Res Life. I have some RAs who are like, “You know what? My programming wasn’t strong last year. I want at some point every resident to go to one of my programmings this year.” Great goal. Let’s work on it. Some are, “I just want to pass to get my degree.” Some are, I have one RA who’s like, “I want to learn how to drive a car. I’ve never driven before.” I’m like, “Perfect. Let’s do that as your goal.” So even though it had nothing to do with their academics or Res Life, it’s what they wanted and needed in the moments.
And helping them build, and then throughout the semester and school year, I will pull up, especially if it’s a quieter time. We don’t need to do a lot with, there’s not really RA selection right now. It’s not during a high stress time. “Hey Noah, how’s your goal? Were you able to get in driving practice last week?” And that in itself, just you bringing it up without them expecting you to, shows that you care and shows that you’re also interested.
Again, with that driving experience, I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t going to sit in the car with them personally. My university doesn’t allow us to be in the car unless through our school vehicles. And they couldn’t drive the school vehicles without a license, but I was still able to follow up with them, give them practice, especially in Vermont driving in snow, being like, “Hey, I know we got a lot going on right now. It’s near the end of the semester. Can you get into your car and practice just driving in snow? Because as soon as you break, your car’s going to go wild. I want you to know what it is in a safe environment. This parking lot’s empty during this time. Go practice snow driving.” And that really shows that one-on-one interest and that you want them to succeed even though it has nothing to do with your job. So I feel like I keep going on a bit of a rant.
Noah Montague:
No, no, no. It’s making me think about a lot of things too, because it’s like I also use my one-on-ones very purposely with my staff and thinking about, “I want this space to be for you and to be your space to talk to me about what you want to.” And building that trust for me comes in that listening to them, in following up when they tell me something, and having those honest conversations.
I had one RA this last year who family was probably the most important thing to him. And he would talk about family in every single one of our meetings and he would give me updates on his brother, on his sister, on his mom, on his dad, on his grandmother. And I had hired him from being my student last year into this year. And when he got hired, in my very first one-on-one with him, I asked him about his grandma because he had told me his grandma was sick the year before and I wanted to follow up and check on him. And I watched that mean the world to this human being in real time of, “Wow, Noah remembered this thing about me. This is someone who actually cares about me coming into this role.” And we’d probably spend about half of every one-on-one just getting the updates on his family and going through everyone. And if he forgot somebody, I’d ask, “Okay, but what about your brother? Is he still abroad? What’s going on there?”
It’s such a unique role that we get to have with them because we watch our actions mean something in real time. And whether it be their face, whether it be the, oh, or whether it be the both meaningful but upsetting sentence like, “This is the first time I felt like a staff member cared about me.” The meaningful sentence, but also that’s devastating to hear that.
But I think that for me, asking those questions and building that connection comes really just from that baseline listening and making the time to show them that we care and that we want to be there. Because it is, to your own point, one thing to be like, “Come to me if you need anything.” And it’s another to be like, “Oh yeah, how is this thing going that you told me about last week?” And that matters to them and it builds that trust and it then makes them come to us with more of those things. It makes them want to talk to us when we do that.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
I know some people, if you’re listening and you’re thinking, “I have so much going on, how am I supposed to remember those little things?” One thing I love to do is I have a notebook that is strictly for my one-on-ones. After every meeting, I’m jotting down notes. So I might be like, “Oh, I remember Noah mentioning his grandmother and coming back in the fall. I’m going to put that down so I remember-“
Noah Montague:
I’m going to remember that.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
And as you said, you do see that. And it is very disappointing at the same time when for the RA, it’s that first time. I even tried doing that with my general students. Now it is impossible to know every student-
Noah Montague:
It’s impossible.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
But if you can remember even a few just when you’re in the hallway and saying, “Oh, hi Noah. How are you doing?” Or especially when you have a situation where a student maybe shared that their grandmother wasn’t doing well and you could bring it up later. It just helps so much. And then also maybe encourages them to want to become RAs and we can do more personal connections.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. I have on occasion, and this is something I started doing this year just to help me with that memory piece, because when we have hundreds of students deviating from the RA part for a second, thinking about student support in general, we’re not going to remember everything just because we have so many and sometimes with RAs as well. I have colleagues who have 30 RAs, and that’s a different conversation than my 12. So thinking about that a little bit. But I will, after a meeting with a student, I might schedule send an email from a week later or four a week later to be like, “Hey, I know you talked about this thing last week,” even though I was sending it that day. But, “Hey, you talked about this today. I wanted to follow up. I hope you’re doing well.”
And that has been a really cool practice for me this year. I’ve only done it a couple times, but there was a student who mentioned he was really struggling on a test, and I wanted to check in and how it went. He told me when it was going to be so I scheduled sent it for later the afternoon after it to follow up on him. And then we actually had another one-on-one a couple weeks later. And that was maybe a weird little thing, but it helped in that space as well.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
It’s honestly so smart. One of my tricks, I know we’re supposed to be talking about RAs. We have the student mail comes to my office, and students will come and be like, “Hey, I got an email saying I need to pick up my mail.” I don’t remember the student’s name. I was like, “Can you remind me of your last name?” And then I’m going through, I’m like, unless it’s Smith or something, I can be like, “Oh no, here you go.” Sorry, it’s just when you’re on a first name basis and some students have picked up that maybe I’m kind of fudging a little bit, but in general, just being able to say, “Oh yes, here you go. ” And then now then I’m like, “I’m sorry, can you just remind me of your first name?” Just own it when you can.
Noah Montague:
For sure.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
But those little tricks. I might steal your idea of the email, though.
Noah Montague:
Give it a go. It worked pretty well for me.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
I’ll try it out.
Noah Montague:
Yeah, no, I liked it a lot. And I watched it matter to the point that we keep making. I watched that outreach matter. And then it helped me then remember the conversation later to be like, “Oh, now they’re responding to this email. I now am remembering what we talked about even though the student isn’t in front of me right now.”
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Absolutely.
Noah Montague:
But I think getting us a little back into thinking about supervision and going into that space, we’re talking a lot about RAs and that’s the main part of this conversation. But briefly, thinking about what makes supervising student staff different than full-time staff for you?
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Absolutely. So I’m very fortunate in my job that I get to supervise both professional staff and student staff. And kind of as you were saying earlier, RAs come in for different reasons. Some might want to be interested in going into higher education instead. My personal experience, all of my students are in STEM. They’re in engineering, they’re in architectural, they’re in nursing, they’re in veterinary technology.
Typically, my students come in, they get a two-year degree, and then they go out in the field. That’s their point. And for my students who have become RAs, it’s typically that the housing is a very expensive part. If I can get my housing for free, that’s going to help me get to my goals faster. My students are going to be career-focused, whereas my professional staff tend to be more of the career. So when I’m thinking of my professional staff, I’m thinking of what’s your one-year plan? What’s your five-year plan? What’s your 10-year plan? And I’m thinking longtuity.
With my students, I think it’s a bit more in the moment. One, in general, my students are in the Gen Zed, Gen Z. Sorry, I’m from the UK. I’m trying to use American terms. Are in Gen Z. And typically, a lot of times, especially just in general for students that are in college, they’re thinking in the moment now, not necessarily everything. So I try to focus on what’s going on with the classes, with the Res Life, and not necessarily the future down the line. Because as I said, we’re fortunate if we get RAs for three years. So I think of everything more but short-term.
And then also, going back to that educator piece, I’m an academic advisor unofficially. I’m a life skills developed coach unofficially. I’m a mental health counselor, uncredited, unlicensed.
Noah Montague:
We all are.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
We all are. And you’re really more thinking of holistic care of a student. I also like to think of things of, you know that joke that nurses and physicians are the worst patients because they won’t go to the doctors themselves. Educators, we’re the same way when it comes to providing resources. During RA training, I pull in as many departments as I can, and they always give them a wad of resources that the RAs are sharing with students. They don’t want to go get it themselves. They will be the first to say to their resident, “Hey, if you’re struggling, I can walk you to the tutoring center and help you get connected with someone from tutoring.” Then they’ll sit in with my one-on-ones in my office and go, “Yeah, I’m really struggling in this class and I don’t know what to do.” “Oh, have you gone to tutoring?” “No.” And I’m the one walking them down to the tutoring center. And I find that hilarious, but also I do it myself. I tell everyone, “Ask for help if you need it, but then I’m not going to ask for help when I need it.
So I feel like that’s the main thing when you’re thinking of student staff, especially if you’re going in for the first time supervising. Don’t go in too much about the big outcomes at the end. Focus a bit more on today, the next week, and maybe the month ahead. Now, obviously, if you’re having something with an issue with an RA who’s not doing their tasks or are not meeting expectations, that’s a bit different because you’re like, “Okay, I want you to understand the role so next month when your new bulletin board is due, you’re not already behind.” But I like to focus a bit more on what do they need in the moment, and then pushing them a little bit outside their comfort zone so they can improve.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. I think I’d agree with you too. And not full-time necessarily, but in-hall staff versus student staff, and thinking about differences in supervision for me in that the trust needs to be huge with full-time staff, but it also looks different with RA staff in that I work to create a space with the heads of hall that I oversee, because I’ve mostly worked with graduate assistants, so they’re also in class while running buildings. So helping them balance that responsibility and helping them navigate that does look different than with an RA and that it is a different job. But also I think there is some overlap for me in navigating, okay, what do you need from me? What do you envision this relationship looking like as far as supervision? What would support look like? What would guidance look like? Do you want to do it and I come in when you need me or do you want me there more actively? And having that honest conversation, I think for me is where I go about building that trust and building that connection with the in-hall staff I’m working with because they’re professionals.
And to a point you’re making, we might get an RA for three years at most. I had a very rare fourth-year RA this year, which was amazing. A little super senior moment, but I got to have him longer, which was lovely. It’s almost like pharmacy and the saxophone performance has no overlap, which meant that he was here a little bit longer. No overlap. So he had a little bit longer on his degree.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Yeah, we all do that. I graduated a year and a half late with my bachelor’s.
Noah Montague:
It happens.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
It happens. And if you’re listening to this and you’re a current student, no one cares once you’re out of college.
Noah Montague:
No one cares once you’re out of college.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
They care, “Prove to me that you know what to do.”
Noah Montague:
Exactly.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
And I say that to every student, every RA that I can.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. For sure. Yeah, those are my main differences for me, for sure.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Yeah. And one thing, adding to your piece of what does my staff need from me? Being able to adjust your supervisory style is so important.
Noah Montague:
Agreed.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
I remember being asked constantly like, “Oh, what’s your supervisory style, Siobhàn?” I’m like, “Yes.”
Noah Montague:
It changes depending on what we’re talking about.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Yeah. I forgot to mention it when I mentioned that first one-on-one, but that’s really one of my things, is what do you need? I have RAs that are like, “I’m hands-off. I’ll do my job. You tell me what to do and I’m done. I don’t need support.” And then I have others who are in my office outside of their one-on-ones just because they need that bit more coaching. I had one RA that loved them to death, they were a fantastic RA, but did not have the confidence that they could do things on their own. I got to the point where I almost had to close my door and be like, “No, training wheels are off. Go do it.” And then once they did, they’re like, “Oh.”
Noah Montague:
“Oh, I do know what I’m doing.”
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Yeah. “After two years of being an RA, I can talk to my residents and…” Fantastic RA. It was more of those conflict issues of, “Hey, I know you’ve been the one trashing the bathroom,” sort of difficult. And it is really important to be open to trying supervisory styles that you might not necessarily enjoy. I personally hate micromanagement. I’ve had RAs who want me on there constantly.
Noah Montague:
Yep.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
I have already-
Noah Montague:
And that’s been a challenge when that’s happened to me too, because that’s not a style I prescribe to, but this is making me remember an RA that I had. I focus very heavily on motivational interviewing and asking questions. And I had an RA who was like, “Hey, Noah, please don’t tiptoe around it. Just tell me what you think.” And I was like, “I did not realize I was tiptoeing around anything. I was using motivational interviewing. And it sounds like this is what’s going on.” She’s like, “Noah, just tell me. Tell me the thing point-blank and I’ll do the thing.” And that was hard for me, I think, to adjust to that need. But how cool was it that she was telling me what she needed and telling me something I was doing wasn’t working for her? She felt comfortable to do that.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
It’s almost like she trusted-
Noah Montague:
Yeah, it’s almost like she trusted me. Mm-hmm.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Miracle.
Noah Montague:
It’s so cool. It’s so cool when that happens.
But I guess this is kind of getting us into my next question a little bit as well, and that you’ve kind of started talking about the accountability piece of everything. But how do you approach those accountability conversations with your student staff?
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
So one thing I would say to begin with, it’s hard. And if you are the one in that position, acknowledge it to yourself that it’s hard. Especially if you’ve had an RA in your office who’s been telling you about their sick grandmother all semester and they’re not meeting expectations. It’s hard and it feels awful because we do care about our students and we want them to trust us and to… You’re not going to break trust by holding students accountable. And I think that’s something that I say to every person. Accept that it’s going to be just uncomfortable and know that you can still keep the trust.
One method that I hear and I personally hate is that sandwich method where you give them a compliment, you tell them what’s wrong and I’m going to give them a compliment, because from my experience, and I’ve seen my professional staff doing this to students, it doesn’t feel genuine. It feels like I’m checking off a box. I’m going to say you have great hair. Now I’m going to tell you about how rude you were to the resident last night during that incident, and then I’m going to tell you that I really love working with you. It doesn’t feel real. So what I like to do is I try to do more where’s their strength and how can I use their strength to build up the accountability of who I’m trying to correct behavior or I’m trying to improve?
I feel like I might go way too long with this quick example, quick in inverted commas. But I have an RA who… And again, my students are STEM, he’s an engineer. He does not do art at all, and his bulletin boards do not look great. He’ll basically print out the word “the”, cut out a square and put it on his board. And part of it he told me, he’s like, he doesn’t really understand visually how to map it all together.
This RA works in our 3D print lab on our campus, has designed 3D prints for me for programming and for RA award stuff. So I went and told him, I’m like, “Why don’t you for your next board 3D print it?” And he looked at me like, “I count 3D printed board.” I’m like, “No, make a slab of 3D on your software and put out the negatives of where you want to put things.” And for him, he said that suddenly worked as a visual because he was able to manipulate where things moved around on the square. He didn’t put all the details, those kind of scribbles for the more specific office hours, but he was able to do that. And then he printed it and had it as a note for his-
Noah Montague:
For sure.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
His bulletin board still was not great, but it was a lot better than his previous ones.
Noah Montague:
Yeah.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
But from maybe not necessarily in that approach, but for accountability, I had one RA who didn’t attend our building closings and wasn’t going to team meetings and wasn’t doing his programming. I just kind of came out and told him flat, I was like, “I’m very disappointed with what things are going on. You were a fantastic RA in the past. This is everything you’ve done great. I know that you have decided you’re not going to return next year. However, you’re still contracted through this semester, and I need you to keep it up.” And going back to that student, he said, “Just tell me what it is.” Sometimes you do have to do that.
But then it was after that kind of conversation, it was, let’s develop a plan. Because they were at that point, that particular RA was debating, do I quit or do I finish out the semester? And I was like, “It’s up to you. I will support you whichever way you choose, but note that I’m going to have specific expectations if you want to stay.”
They ended up deciding to say, so we wrote out an action plan. We put specifically of what expectations were. And again, I felt this was a little tedious on my end, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you what you need to do as an RA for your basic jobs. But in the moment it was what this RA needed. They were overwhelmed with their work and their classes, and this just gave them something that they could put on their door. And it’s almost like a check mark of, “Okay, I did my bulletin board for April. I did my bulletin board for May. I am doing my programming for this. I’m going to be here for these meetings.” And also with the expectation of what would happen if he didn’t go through.
And then each one-on-one, we did a bit more with Res Life related than I had previously because it was, “Okay, let’s look at your plan. Where are we at? How are we doing? What do you need?” Was it perfect? I’m going to say no. There were definitely things that this RA missed. And at the point it was like, it’s finals week. My hands are tied. I can’t fire an RA during finals week. But my RAs, if they are not graduating, have an expectation to work commencement and to do senior move-outs the day after commencement.
He showed up. He did not look like he wanted to be there, but he showed up to both. And I was like, you know what? That, to me-
Noah Montague:
You met expectation.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
You met my expectation. Were you my best RA? No. Were the other RAs a little frustrated? Yes, but…
Noah Montague:
You met the expectation.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
You met the expectation. And that’s at the moment all you can want. And especially just also as a bit of a warning, if you have RAs that are graduating, senioritis hits hard.
Noah Montague:
In my experience, it can. It definitely can.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
You’re going to have the RAs who are excelling their senior year, but you’re also going to have RAs of like, “Ah.” And being able to hold them to that accountability, especially when you’re like, “You want me to be a reference for you, right? For after you graduate?” You’re still going to need to meet my expectations. You still need to… Or yes, you have a job already lined up, but you still have to pass your classes to get your degree.
Noah Montague:
Mm-hmm. And I love your answer so much, both in that it leads me perfectly into another story I want to tell, but also it centers so heavily on what we’ve been talking about in listening to our staff and meeting them and their needs. Something that I do with every single one of my RAs is one of the questions I ask them at the start of the year is, how do you prefer to receive feedback? How do you want to get feedback from me?
Because I’ve had RAs who are like, “I prefer feedback to be written. That’s how I want to get it. That’s how I would like to give it.” That is not my preference. But them telling me that, okay, I’m like, “Okay, this is my staff member telling me this will be the best way for me to receive that.” So then that builds trust if I meet them in that need. And it might be, I prefer to receive it directly. It might be, I prefer to get the compliment sandwich. I’ve had RAs say they want that. I don’t like it. I might challenge that one a little bit because it does feel disingenuous to me, but I try to meet them in that need.
I think about one of the first times I ever had to give feedback to an RA many years ago now. And he had told me very directly, he’s like, “I want to receive feedback in person, one-on-one. Just tell me.” And I began the conversation with, “Hey, I know you asked to receive feedback directly and I have something that I want to talk about. Is now an okay time for us to talk?” And I watched him sit up straight immediately and he was like, “Yeah, let’s do that.” And then we had an honest conversation. And that day, he apologized to the staff member that he offended and he never did it again.
And it was a very important moment, I think for me as a professional as well, because it solidified that for me in, “Okay, I’m going to talk to my staff about feedback all the time,” because one, I want to make that a normal part of their lives is, “Hey, we’re talking about performance, we’re talking about how you’re doing, and I want you to tell me how I’m doing because I want to be the best possible supervisor for you and I want you to be the best possible RAs for your students. So let’s talk about how we can do better.” Because that builds that team dynamic. It builds that trust and it makes it a two-way streaks because it should never just be me holding them accountable. It should be everybody holding everybody accountable.
So I think for me, it really is having those conversations of, “Hey, how do you want this to look?” And then trying our best to meet them in that. I’ve seen that be really successful for me in giving that accountability and holding them accountable.
But I guess to wrap us up, Siobhàn, we’ve already given a lot of advice to folks, but what might be the one thing if someone was going to listen or watch this and take one thing away from our conversation, what piece of advice would you give to a first time supervisor?
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
Absolutely. So I’m thinking back to also stuff that I got that really meant for me. And if you only listened for the last five minutes of this podcast, or if there’s only one thing I want you to take away from this, know that you have supports too. We’ve talked a lot about supporting RAs. You have a team. You’re not the only one who’s going to be overseeing your entire campus, your entire institution. You have others.
Noah Montague:
For sure.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
A great example I’ve seen was I’ve had hall directors who are like, “Hey,” it was their first year, “I know you had Jessica last year as an RA. How is she? What are some of the things she likes?” And again, being able to do that in your first one-on-one asking, “How do you like feedback? What do you want us to use these one-on-ones for?” But being able to talk to your colleagues about, “Hey, I know you had this individual. What can I do? What’s your recommendation for supporting the staff member?”
Noah Montague:
Yeah.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
If anything, also just be okay with not being perfect.
Noah Montague:
Yeah.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
As a perfectionist, I get it. I got my first paper grade back this week and I got an A minus, and I turned to my husband, I’m like, “Can you read the feedback? Because I’m terrified to read the feedback.” I got a 93. How bad can the feedback be if I was terrified to read it? Know that it’s okay not to be perfect. And again, kind of going back to that, we are the last people to ask for help. Ask for help. It doesn’t make you look weak. It makes you look really strong, and it’s going to make you the best supervisor for your RAs, the best staff member for your students. It’s going to help your RAs be the best for their students.
Yeah. And also just staying connected. I’m on a Facebook group called Res Life Professionals that I’m able to ask questions either anonymously or publicly with my name. And that’s helped me overcome that fear of asking questions, and just getting to know your expectations.
Noah Montague:
Yeah.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
And I feel like I’m saying and, and and, and and. Make mistakes. Mistakes are where learning happens. You’re not going to learn if you’re doing everything perfectly. Make mistakes, own up to them and move on. Same way we would forgive an RA for making a mistake and coach them into how to not make the mistakes again. Your supervisor’s going to do the same thing. You’re allowed to make mistakes, grow from them.
Noah Montague:
Yeah. I would agree with every single one of those points, particularly that we’re not alone in the supervision space. I actually did the exact same thing a couple days ago that I have, because I’m moving buildings currently to a new community. And I have a new RA coming to my staff that one of my supervisors called me and was like, “Hey, you might’ve looked at your new staff. It’s different now. We had to make a couple changes. This new person is coming to your hall.” And I was like, “Oh, okay. I’ll call his old RD and check in with them and be like, ‘Hey, one, do you know anything about this move? And two, tell me about this person. Tell me about their work. Tell me about why you had hired them.'” And then I learned this RD had hired them, walked into work with them. And then for reasons beyond her, some changes got made to some staffing structure because that happens sometimes.
But she had nothing but good things to say about this human. And I would not have known that had I not utilized my community to have that conversation, be like, “Hey, tell me about this person,” that I’m getting that I wasn’t planning on getting. And that was unbelievably helpful. So remember that we’re not alone. I think I would second that advice.
But that just about wraps us up today, Siobhàn. Thank you again for joining me. I hope you had fun and enjoyed our conversation.
Siobhàn Anderson-Judkins:
I enjoyed it.
Noah Montague:
And that wraps us up as well. So thank you all for joining us on today’s episode of ResEdChat. If as always, you have an idea for a topic or a person you’d like us to have on the show, please let us know by reaching out to Roompact. And as always, keep taking care of one another and enjoy the rest of your day. Bye folks.
