Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
As we say goodbye to Ted Lasso, we thought it only appropriate we revisit some quotes from the show. There's a reason why this show is so popular, particularly among student affairs and residence life folk, it speaks to our authentic hopes and wishes for our students and the values we try to uphold in... Continue Reading →
One of the essential elements of a curricular approach is to have a regular review process in place. Peer review is one of the best ways of building buy-in for your curriculum and improving its effectiveness. Divisions and departments will approach the peer-review process differently. Some may choose to set aside a "review day" a... Continue Reading →
Having a "vendor fair" is a feature of the the ACUHO-I annual conference and at the various regional conferences (NEACUHO, AIMHO, UMR-ACUHO, SEAHO, WACUHO, MACUHO, GLACUHO, SWACUHO, and NWACUHO). If you're a first time attendee to these conferences, you may not be sure how to approach these fairs and how to interact with vendors. Don't... Continue Reading →
What does the future of AI-based technology hold? We're doing a little experiment, specifically with the AI chat-bot, ChatGPT. This post is part of a series where we ask ChatGPT interesting, unusual, or just plain fun questions related to residence life and college student housing. All answers were generated by the AI. At the end... Continue Reading →
Bulletin boards have been a fixture of most residence life departments for decades. Creating fun, engaging, and educational bulletin boards is a common requirement for resident assistants and student staff. But since the advent of the internet, smart phones, and all of the other ways we can now engage residents, do bulletin boards still have... Continue Reading →
Occasionally divisions and departments may be called upon to provide a more formal rationale for why they pursue (or why they wish to pursue) the development of a residential curriculum or curricular approach. I developed the following to provide a succinct overview of the curricular approach, its history, the work and research that supports it,... Continue Reading →
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. During staff training, conferences, and at other points of the year, you may... Continue Reading →
As a facilitator of residential curriculum and curricular approach workshops, one of the challenges I have is how to explain the process in a way that makes sense to attendees. One of the reasons this is challenging, is that curricular approaches introduce a number of new terms and use those terms in very specific ways.... Continue Reading →
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. Social media can be an excellent platform for student engagement. We wanted to... Continue Reading →
Roompact's Microsurveys tool is one of the more interesting and unique features available on our platform. Microsurveys allows you to send brief, one-question surveys to your residents. Residents can respond with answers that are open text, on a likert scale, or multiple choice. These surveys can also be sent via email or text message. They... Continue Reading →
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. Intentional Conversations are a feature of many residence life and education programs. These... Continue Reading →
From my perspective at Roompact, I get to work with many different institutions all across the country. One of the unique perspectives this affords me is the ability to more frequently pick up on trends occurring than others may. In particular, I've been hearing that residence life staff have been encountering residents with unique needs... Continue Reading →
When is the last time you gave your RA or student staff evaluation process a through review? Given the myriad of responsibilities of residence life professionals, staff evaluations can be easy to overlook until the time comes for a formal review. Good residence life departmental practice, however, should involve a continuous annual review of position... Continue Reading →
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. Many schools are transitioning to a residential curriculum or curricular approach to their... Continue Reading →
We want to hear from you...How has COVID permanently changed the field of residence life and housing? Want to share your thoughts? Roompact is holding a blog post writing contest! Put your thoughts to paper and you could win a prize. All winners will also receive a personalized caricature of themselves done by our artist.... Continue Reading →
Congratulations to all the winners and participants in our third annual Roompact Door Dec Contest! There were so many creative submissions, and the decision was hard, but we’re happy to have new art for the 2021-2022 academic year. Here are our winners... Student Staff Category First PlaceTsuto at University of Colorado Boulder First PlaceEvalynn at... Continue Reading →
Roommate agreements are a common process that many residence life departments deploy at the beginning of an academic year to help students transition to life with a (new) roommate. Typically a roommate agreement will be a document containing a number of questions that roommates review and complete together. They can include questions about expectations, habits,... Continue Reading →
For Pro Staff For Student Staff Roompact's "Quick Tips" series highlights ideas and suggestions you can put into your practice as either a professional staff or student staff member working in residence life and education. Click to read more from the series. An inevitable part of every housing professional's fall is dealing with roommate conflict.... Continue Reading →
