by James A. Baumann
The role of the campus resident assistant has shifted through the years. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic – with its added safety precautions and rules, as well as the reduced student populations actually living on campus – has been thought to mark an evolutionary leap in these student workers’ responsibilities. Now, at least at one campus, it has led to their elimination in favor of more specialized positions.
Last month, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on how George Washington University in Washington, D.C., would no longer have student RAs and, instead, professional live-in staff will be the ones who respond to incidents such as students in crisis. As the article explains,
… professional, live-in staff members will take on the first-responder role that RAs have filled in the past. Instead of the 140 RAs it had last year, George Washington will hire around 200 students for hourly, part-time work like mediating peer conflicts, manning front desks in residence halls, helping students move in and out, and communicating through emails and social media. The university hopes to serve as a model for other colleges looking to alleviate the pressures on RAs.
The article goes on to note how student RAs previously had been asked to serve a variety of roles from community building to rule enforcement and safety monitoring. The new structure will allow student staff to focus on specific areas and tasks of the community and support “a philosophical shift to a more robust professional staffing model” as it was described by M.L. Petty, the campus’s vice president for student affairs and dean of students. As the article states,
Each dormitory will have at least one professional staff person living there to be the first point of contact for students. Because of their training, education, and experience, these staff members will be better suited, the university concluded, to handle parts of the job like safety compliance and behavioral intervention that many RAs found challenging and unfulfilling.
Read the full article here.
News & Notes
It generally is accepted that students living in residence halls benefit from the experience. But what aspect of campus housing delivers the greatest benefit? That’s the question that the authors of a recent study asked in the latest issue of ACUHO-I’s The Journal of College and University Student Housing.
The article, “The Impact of Relationships with Hall Mates, Tutors, and Wardens on the Residence Hall Experience in Hong Kong" (Vol. 47, No. 1), looked at data from more than 1,300 student residents. The survey results showed that students credited the social interactions they had in residence halls for expanding their successes in academics, interpersonal outcomes, and personal development. In the study the authors state that “residence halls are more than mere geographical boundaries.” They go on to say, “Results showed that the most significant gains were related to interpersonal outcomes whereby students expressed improved social communication skills and greater awareness of others’ feelings following their residential experience.”
The article authors were Sam Chu at the University of Hong Kong, Elsie Li Chen Ong of the University of Northhampton, Albert Chau of Hong Kong Baptist University, and Robert Chung of the University of Hong Kong. The full article is available here.