Housing and Residence Life: Community & Engagement | Competencies & Learning | Care & Case Management | Assessment
Maybe it’s a whole room. Maybe it’s a few cabinets tucked into the back of an office, or maybe it’s an entire basement in an older residence hall that hasn’t seen the light of day in decades. It’s the place where supplies go to live out their days: paper scraps saved in the name of... Continue Reading →
Happy spooky season, readers! Today’s post is exploring the slightly spooky side of leadership, using your strategic leadership skills. For some of you, “strategic” may not be a strength or leadership skill you immediately identify with, but I’m willing to bet you are using it more often than you think. In our Res Life roles,... Continue Reading →
Small Assessment Moves that Reveal Big Insights about Student Learning It’s 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, and you’re walking through your residence hall after hanging out with some other Hall Directors. The study lounge is packed, but nobody seems to be studying. Two residents are arguing about dishes in the common kitchen sink. An RA stops you... Continue Reading →
One of the most interesting lessons I have learned in seven years of residence life work is that helping someone does not always mean solving their problem. That can be a difficult idea to reconcile with student affairs work. We are deeply committed to serving students. We want them to feel heard, supported, and cared... Continue Reading →
The academic year is in full swing. You’re supervising student staff, building community, answering emails, navigating yet another roommate conflict, and putting out a million little fires. Then your duty phone rings at 2 a.m. You probably got into this work because you wanted to make a difference. Maybe you had an incredible Res Life experience yourself. Maybe... Continue Reading →
There’s an interesting paradox with loneliness that always fascinates me. One can be alone but not feel lonely, just as someone can be lonely, but not be alone. The two ideas are often conflated and interchanged, but there is such a clear delineation between the two. It’s unfortunate that idea gets lost because stripping the... Continue Reading →
We all have moments in our careers where we cringe. I remember a regular departmental staff meeting my second year of graduate school, where our director shared with us that we were doing something new today. Depending on your demeanor, the words, “something new” can either be very exciting or terrifying. I wasn’t quite sure... Continue Reading →
Roompact's door dec competition is now closed and we're ready to announce the winners. We received 110+ entries (!), so picking ten was incredibly difficult. We tried to select a diverse group of winners that reflected the diversity of the submissions themselves. Thank you to all who entered! Your ideas are now a resource for... Continue Reading →
Recently, a colleague, Paige Harris, and I were working on a presentation about incorporating joy at work. We were brainstorming about what joy looks like for each person and that each supervisor doesn’t have to create joy in the same way for it to be meaningful for a team. We ended up coming up with... Continue Reading →
A quick and essential disclaimer to start: I have never been one to believe in perfect work/life balance. Or at least not what many folx see as that perfect balance - complete segmentation and no crossing of boundaries between apportioned “work time” and “life time.” Maybe it’s because I am the child of secondary school... Continue Reading →
For housing professionals, move-in day often feels like the finish line. Months of planning culminate in a few hectic days of key distribution, check-in lines, and helping students carry far more belongings than they will ever actually use. Once the halls are full, it can be tempting to shift our attention to the next operational... Continue Reading →
It’s professional development season, a great time to reflect on how you hope to grow and learn this year. Whether you prefer large conferences, smaller institutes, certifications, or something in between, there are so many ways to invest in your development. If your institution provides professional development funding, I highly encourage you to consider joining... Continue Reading →
The beginning of every year in residence life is a concoction of endless training. We spend weeks and countless hours lecturing staff, professionals and students, on their statutory and ethical obligations. We all cover the same sessions on how to do the various aspects of our work from assisting with students in crisis, lockouts, report... Continue Reading →
As Residence Life staff, we are often (digitally) swimming in data. We receive and analyze data related to students, rooms, incidents, programs, duty, inspections, and more. And while many wonderful software companies have made storing and reporting on these data much easier over time - and many of us work with awesome colleagues who can... Continue Reading →
What advice would you give to an incoming first year student? How can you enable them to build community and a sense of belonging? Consider writing your own or sharing this with your incoming residents. One of your first experiences in college is likely going to be meeting the individuals living near you in the... Continue Reading →
I have supervised three sibling groups in the past three years - on the same staff team and one year after the other! Many RDs intentionally do not hire siblings or departments have unwritten expectations that siblings don’t get hired to the same staff team. I was warned not to hire siblings onto the same... Continue Reading →
Can you believe summer is over? While the actual calendar says there's still plenty of the year left, anyone who works in Residence Life knows exactly what's coming. Goodbye to quiet residence halls, summer planning sessions, and those ambitious plans to finally create the perfect new process that will solve everyone’s problems. Maybe next year,... Continue Reading →
As move-in season approaches, many new staff members find themselves more nervous about interacting with parents than students. We hear stories of our peers’ past experiences, and maybe have some lingering in the back of our brains as well. The truth is that most parents are not trying to be difficult. They're doing something incredibly... Continue Reading →
