Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
This blog series features different writers responding to the prompt, "What is the future of the RA role?" Read More From The Series Guest Post by Sam Ferrigno, Professional Staff Member, UMBC In years past, the RA role has been an indispensable touchpoint for residential college students as they navigate the policies and procedures of... Continue Reading →
Hopes and Fears is an icebreaker game that can be used to help process through new beginnings or periods of transition. Typically, a facilitator will pass out an index card--one side will be for the participant to list "hopes" and the other side for "fears." It is supposed to be a moment of vulnerability and... Continue Reading →
This quarter's Roompact Contest invites residence life and housing professionals to submit a blog post responding to the prompt, "How has COVID changed ResLife?" The post shared as part of this series represent their views on the topic. If you'd like to submit your own post, learn more about how to enter the contest here.... Continue Reading →
This quarter's Roompact Contest invites residence life and housing professionals to submit a blog post responding to the prompt, "How has COVID changed ResLife?" The post shared as part of this series represent their views on the topic. If you'd like to submit your own post, learn more about how to enter the contest here.... 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 →
I’ve been putting off writing this article for a few days now. With econ tests, essays, presentations, and serving in an on-call duty rotation, one could say the pressure is high. Add in the remains of a global pandemic and what do you get? My second year of grad school. I think we are all... Continue Reading →
In this episode of Roompact's ResEdChat, we talk with Debbie Scheibler, residence life professional, former MACUHO President, and current doctoral student. We discuss what the residence life landscape looks like post-COVID and Debbie's doctoral research into students experiences at campuses with a residential curriculum.
Many colleges and universities across higher education use Roompact to facilitate their roommate and suitemate agreement process. Roompact Agreements includes customizable templates, the automatic distribution of agreements to specific resident groups, and agreement records that can be accessed and revised by both staff and students alike. Many institutions will customize their agreement templates in Roompact's... Continue Reading →
In episode 7 of Roompact's series on residence life and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Paul Brown discusses the importance of real-time assessment. Although always a useful exercise, it becomes increasingly important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being able to get information back quickly to inform daily decisions can allow you to adapt more quickly... Continue Reading →
In episode 6 of Roompact's series on residence life and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Paul Brown discusses concern about how we can adequately prepare students for careers post-pandemic, particularly for graduating seniors. What are the realities of a job search right now?How might you adjust your learning objectives?How can you partner with career... Continue Reading →
In episode 5 of Roompact's series on residence life and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Paul Brown discusses how intentional conversations as a strategy in your engagement with students can be especially useful during this time. Intentional Conversations are one-on-one meetings between student staff and residents that are guided by a suggested set of... Continue Reading →
In episode 4 of Roompact's series on residence life and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Paul Brown discusses how text messaging can help in engaging and communicating with your residents. Even before the pandemic, text messaging was a highly effective way of communicating with residents, often yielding better read and respond rates over email.... Continue Reading →
In episode 3 of Roompact's series on residence life and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Paul Brown discusses trends he's seeing in the adoption of technology and software tools to help staff navigate this unusual time. He also muses on ways this will impact residence life practice in the future, even when the pandemic... Continue Reading →
In episode 2 of Roompact's series on residence life and education during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Paul Brown discusses the concept of essentialism and how it can be useful as you pivot your practice to these new realities. The concept of essentialism comes from a work by author Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of... Continue Reading →
Much like everyone in the field, we're exploring new ways to do our work and new methods for reaching those we work for. At Roompact, we're experimenting with video and specifically how we can use a VLOG format (Video-Blog) to help engage and educate our audience. It seemed only fitting that for our first foray... Continue Reading →
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a unique challenge for maintaining residential education and campus community in a time of social distancing and abrupt transitions to online and hybridized learning format. The role of residential education, however, is more critical than ever. Aiding students in identifying support networks, making connections with others, and the sharing of timely and... Continue Reading →
Having a plan in place for contract tracing is a key strategy in mitigating the spread of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. The CDC states that contract tracing allows you to “trace and monitor the contacts of infected people” and notify those with whom they’ve contact of their exposure. This can also “help ensure the safe,... Continue Reading →
The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented situation for residence life departments across the county. As many campuses make the transition to online classes, at Roompact, we're witnessing first-hand how our software has become more critical than ever. Additionally, many of our clients are using Roompact's features and solutions in new and novel ways. Here is what... Continue Reading →
