FIRST PERSON
by Travis Knipe
We all know that 2020 has been a challenging world on many fronts. That said, I have been truly impressed with the resilience, adaptability, and collaboration I’ve seen from the higher education residential communities that I have been deeply connected to for more than 20 years. Typically, a year in the life of a higher education residential professional has followed a predictable timeline filled with applications, admissions, room selection, orientation, move-in, programming, commencement, and so on. Most of these milestones come with well-known and well-loved traditions that help ensure that students have a great and authentic experience and serve as their launching pad to a successful year ahead. Now, those activities have been replaced with having to manage delicate communication, make tough decisions, navigate rapid move-outs, institute policy changes, implement health advisory changes, and much more. Staff have also had to navigate remote working and remote teams. Processes like managing the online room selection historically took place with a residential team together in one place. This year teams had to adapt to working from home, separated physically (but connected digitally) and trying to ensure that students and parents have the same great experience they have come to expect. Some innovations such as online chat emerged as valuable solutions and will continue to be a great way forward for the future.
I also have been personally impressed by people who manage customer care as well as change with the help of technology to manage change. They were able to deliver a semester experience for a number of residents, with contactless move-in processes (sorry, family and friends who were looking forward to helping), quarantine and isolation management, data dashboards, and more. Room management planning became an intensive process that required collaborating with health services, facilities, residential life, and campus information technology teams to determine the best collaboration tools, planning, reporting, communications, optimal room configuration, and implementation of COVID-19 safe protocols. On top of all that, it’s been amazing to see how campuses have adapted to local and state regulations to managing the COVID testing process.
Resident engagement was more important than ever, and we witnessed a great evolution with digital events. Student staff took on even more challenging responsibilities to keep residents engaged. Residential communities have leveraged Instagram live, Facebook, and other platforms to deliver newly imagined events like movie parties and online yoga classes. Cases where isolation and quarantining are necessary have been approached with care and consideration, and often improvisation, to ensure the best outcome for residents. The handling of personal belongings, meal services, and more had to be revised. Emotional Support Animals were already challenging, and now there is the added complexity of how to handle residents in quarantine or isolation.
Despite all the change, what has been shown is that when you bring together amazing and resilient professionals (even if it is only virtually), the best outcomes can be reached. I commend the student housing professionals and campus partners who participated in a marathon that has involved endless sprints and tenacity. I know how much they miss the residential communities of the past. I know that when we pass through this period of time, our amazing community will have evolved and adopted some amazing new best practices, to enhance some old traditions, and to build even stronger thriving residential communities for the future.
"First Person" is a column that allows ACUHO-I members a chance to put a personal spin on a news story. Travis Knipe is the chief executive officer of StarRez.
