Campus Council discussed the role of resident assistants in building community and enforcing University policy in residence halls at its meeting Thursday. Senior Josh Allen-Dicker, president of the Student Staff Advisory Board—a group designed to represent the interests of RAs and graduate assistants—addressed the council, speaking about current problems and potential improvements for the role of the RA.
“Personally, I think it’s a voice that is not heard all too often on this campus,” Allen-Dicker said.
The discussion, which Allen-Dicker called an opportunity to discover “what students want from their RAs,” began with a list of initiatives supported by StAB, most notably a system of identification designed to allow police officers to seek out the RA when responding to a complaint. Allen-Dicker predicted the system will be in place by January.
Council members noted the similarities between the council and Residence Life and Housing Services staff in terms of programming duties and overall goals, and Allen-Dicker cited one example of overlap between RA-generated and Quad Council-based programs.
“I feel like, with Quad Councils and RAs, there’s a direction we’ve been trying to take—we’ve been trying to do programming, to improve life on campus,” said junior Brenna Benson, the council’s programming chair. “But we’re not pooling resources.”
Although sophomore Damian Denoble, vice president of the council, suggested that RAs make a greater effort to befriend their neighbors, Allen-Dicker stressed the delicacy of the situation when RAs fraternize with those they discipline. Both policy enforcement and community-building are key components of the job, according to the description of the position formulated by RLHS.
“There’s a lot of mixed messages floating around RLHS... RAs still have to enforce policy on this campus,” Allen-Dicker said. “All I can say is you walk a thin line being an RA.”
Allen-Dicker also emphasized the difficulty of fulfilling other expectations, such as the prohibition on tenting and the requirement that RAs be on call in the residence halls for 12 hours at a time.
“They want somebody who’s well-rounded and active on campus, but duty starts at 7 p.m., which pretty much precludes all extracurricular activities,” Allen-Dicker said.
He submitted a revised version of the requirements to the council and said he would welcome any suggestions.
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