Housing and Residence Life: Community & Engagement | Competencies & Learning | Care & Case Management | Assessment
by Sophia Muta My current favorite topic to talk about with my 18-year-old sister in her first year of college is about her use of AI. The big-sisterly advice I like to give her is to stop asking ChatGPT questions and start asking me first, so far, ChatGPT is winning the battle. While she may... Continue Reading →
This might be a controversial hot take, but I’m grateful for how the pandemic impacted my career trajectory – let me explain. Throughout my career, I’ve worked in both bifurcated and non-bifurcated Housing and Residence Life departments, and my four years of working as a Residence Director were split by Covid – I have two... Continue Reading →
Every year (yes, academic AND calendar) I like to spend some time with my tarot cards as a point of reflection on what I’ve done and where I might need to go to live my best life. I think a lot about the messages that we can learn from the Major Arcana, which tell an... Continue Reading →
by Alli Hurtado Residence life is a field deeply rooted in tradition. Many of our core practices, health and safety inspections, multi-week student staff trainings, door decorations, on-call rotations, and structured programming models have remained largely unchanged for decades. These structures were built with care and intention, designed to create safe, supportive, and engaging residential communities, places... Continue Reading →
by Matthew M. Inman During a recent focus group with resident assistants (RAs), one staff member said, “I’m supposed to talk with my residents about leadership, but some can’t even speak to their neighbors.” As an educator, this statement had a lasting impact. It represents a misalignment between what we currently focus on in resident... Continue Reading →
Do you actually know how to have a 1-on-1 meeting? For most of us in residence life, one-on-one meetings with supervisees are built into the job. But when’s the last time you thought about how you’re doing them? Too often, we slap them on the calendar and call it “supervision,” when in reality, they’re structured... Continue Reading →
Changing Residence Life Practice to Meet Current Student Needs by Austin Korynta As a young professional, one of my least favorite phrases from mid-to-upper-level administration is the phrase “I’m old school.” In my personal reflection on that phrase, “I’m old school” communicates, to me, an unwillingness to change and adapt to the current environment, the... Continue Reading →
by Yoke Tassent In many ways, college students will always be college students. They will be under-rested and over-caffeinated. Planning their days full of opportunities to prepare them for the work force while making “core memories”. They will have a large appetite they must fulfill on a small budget. Relying on ramen and a meal... Continue Reading →
by Dr. Julie Ridgway Have you noticed your student staff engaged with your curricular approach? Are students attending or utilizing your strategies? Have you thought about if your curricular approach is Gen Z enough? Generation Z is the current generation of students living in our residence halls. As defined by Pew, Generation Z individuals were born... Continue Reading →
Number of events. Average attendance. Number of *unique* attendees in a semester. Average student staff GPA. Number of Intentional Interactions per month. Number of outreach attempts for unenrolled students. Percentage of monthly report forms turned in. Number of room moves. Number of duty calls related to a smoke detector. This is but a small portion... Continue Reading →
by Ryan Taylor It’s been six (can you believe it, six years!) since the pandemic impacted how we do this work. Remember the Zoom 1:1s, the virtual curriculum strategies, and for some, the closed residential communities? It’s just wild to think that was now 6 years ago - it still feels so recent. Six years... Continue Reading →
by D.J. Moore From learning about En Loco Parentis during graduate school to attending Title IX and other important trainings as our institutions, part of working in Higher Education is being dedicated to a growth mindset and being a life-long learner (whether that learning takes place in a formal classroom or on the job). Psychologists and sociologists... Continue Reading →
Although it may sound a little odd, one of my favorite hobbies is budgeting. As a person who loves to collect many different types of items, and who carries an insatiable love of traveling, I’ve become rather skilled in how to make my money bend and stretch. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes from filling... Continue Reading →
Residence Life practices are changing with the times, or at least they should be. Technology is everywhere, including in the way the residential spaces are designed. The historic residential spaces persist and that age old motto “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” will continue for as long as possible, mostly due to replacement costs... Continue Reading →
Universities typically provide different kinds of housing, catered towards different communities and resident populations. Typically, RA’s and student staff members will have areas that they prefer to live in, which makes these spaces more competitive for assignments. Here are some tips and tricks to help you get assigned to the area that you want. 1. Start... Continue Reading →
A tale as old as time! A supervisor asks, “How do you like to receive feedback?” and the supervisee confidently replies, “I prefer direct feedback.” Time passes, the supervisor provides that direct feedback, and suddenly, the supervisee is shocked, defensive, and hurt. Everyone leaves the conversation feeling a little worse for wear. Feedback is one... Continue Reading →
In 2017, I found myself as a freshman in college, rooming with three other strangers in a dorm where I knew nobody, on a campus where I knew no one. Even though I was surrounded by thousands of students my age, with whom I should have easily been able to connect, my freshman year of... Continue Reading →
...and What it Means for Student Affairs Practitioners Trying to Build Community When I started college, I was excited about my new dorm and especially curious about who my roommate would be. Now, though, students are changing how they live and connect. More students see privacy as an important part of living on campus and... Continue Reading →
