Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
When I entered my third year as a Resident Director, I itched for the days when I finally had a seat at the leadership table – making actual contributions to departmental decisions, dedicating most of my time to long-term departmental planning, processes – vowing that when I was in a position of leadership, I would... Continue Reading →
As we work with student leaders, we know that most of them do not plan on going into student affairs, or even Housing and Residence Life for the long term – essentially, we’re hoping they translate the skills and lessons they learn in our time with them to future positions and professional opportunities. However, many... Continue Reading →
Earlier this month a Director of Residence Life from a former institution of mine reached out asking about benchmarking practices for the re-evaluation of their four-year fixed contract for live-in Residence Directors. He reached out asking if our live-in hall directors were on fixed-term contracts - limiting our Residential Community Coordinators to four years in... Continue Reading →
In all honesty, the title of this blog post should be, The Years I Hired Off-Cycle, but that doesn’t match Jenny Han’s Will Belly Choose Conrad? energy, so here we are. When I first began working professionally in the field, hiring, on-boarding and training for both professional live-in hall directors and student leaders followed a... Continue Reading →
A sentiment that has long been a question of mine – why do application and interview processes for entry level positions feel like you’re interviewing for something much more serious, and why do these processes have so many steps? With multiple rounds, meeting with various people, and sometimes involving a presentation or writing sample submission,... Continue Reading →
Other duties as assigned. We see this catch-all in every job description, and within Residence Life we know all too well how true it tends to be. I used to think that this notion was included to protect departments from backlash when needing to give special projects and tasks to staff outside of their day-to-day... Continue Reading →
It’s seemingly a tried-and-true Housing and Residence Life tradition for departments across the country – Behind Closed Doors – the part of student staff training that new Resident Assistants tend to dread, returners – who sometimes get more into the acting than learning – tend to love. This tradition leaves professionals feeling drained, and usually... Continue Reading →
A few years ago, I was chatting with my supervisor about Residence Life Student Staff Training. I was in the planning stages of drafting everything for July and August and she was gushing about how it was her favorite time of the year. I remember looking at her deadpan in the face and saying, “Really,... Continue Reading →
This meeting could have been an email. How many times have you said this? How many times have you heard this? Within higher education, we’re notorious for having standing meetings that are often longer than they need to be, knowing that the information could have been communicated via email. Amidst the chaos that was my... Continue Reading →
It’s November, and as I’m leaving for work, my phone vibrates with a voice memo from my friend, Kevin*. Kevin and I have been friends for almost two decades, as he was my resident in undergrad and then we ended up working in Housing and Residence Life together in the two years that followed. We... Continue Reading →
