Hi! So my master's level resident directors or bachelor's level ummm what are your apartments looking like? Are they renovated? Are you comfortable? How many rooms? Also does anyone have a family?(spouse/kids/baby)

Hi, I am a fairly new assistant director of ResLife at a small junior college, about 350 students that live on campus. We have an emergency alert messaging system, that can message all students (even those that live off campus). I’ve asked about making one for just our student in housing, but my higher ups are a little stuck in their ways and say it might be too complicated. I’m wanting to know if there are any apps or other software that the students can sign up for, so we can be more in contact with them.

Please help! This will be my first time attending the ACUHO I Business Ops conference and I don’t know what to wear, at my current position people are not very dressy, everyone dresses very casual no business attire even the director is always on a casual look so I am not sure how to dress for this conference. Thank you :)

What schools pay the best when it comes to Residents Director positions? (Tristate area) What can I expect post grad?

Hello everyone. I recently (like less than a month ago) took on a residential student affairs job that pays less than 20k. It is a live-on role with a contract until May. I received an offer for an interview for a new position. It’s more or less the same role, but it pays almost double and is in a much better area. Also, I cannot have overnight guests at this current job, but my partner would be able to move in in the new one. I have a couple questions now that I obviously can’t ask coworkers or my boss.

1.) Is it possible or fair for me to leave my current position for the new one if offered (God willing)? My contract was very bare and did not have any specifics about leaving mid-contract. It only states that my contract is until May, but not that I must be with them or can’t leave.

2.) Should I mention in my interview that I am currently in contract? I kind of want to, as this job is my first post-grad experience and it’s helped me become way more qualified in a couple weeks than I was before. It’s also a really good school despite its restrictions. However, I don’t want them to see it as a reason not to hire me.

what program / process do you all use to verify enrollment for students in housing? trying to come up with an easier method.

I am currently dorming at a private university. My RA just updated our bulletin board for Halloween and the theme is the Israel Palestine War. As a Jew living diagonally from this bulletin board, I am feeling unsure if this will cause antisemitism on campus. Am I overreacting or are RAs allowed to bring politics into their halls?

Not an RA anymore, but was thinking back fondly (ugh) of my time as an RA today. I suddenly remembered something that happened my first (and only) year as an RA. This is in a joint venture university outside of the USA if that matters. So joint US college and foreign college.

I had made friends with a few other RAs, and we went to a mall with some residents once at the beginning of the semester. While on the trip, a bunch of RAs and residents came out to each other, myself included. It was very wholesome, we were in a small college so at first it probably felt like there were no queer people on campus. Finding community like that was special. We went on with our day, went back to campus and went to a town hall. Never thought more on it.

Come to find out 4 months later, one of the RAs on the outing was homophobic, and when we got back to the town hall, she went to at least 10+ people and outed all of us, RAs and residents (some of whom were her residents, mind you). This gets spread around the whole school without us knowing, we get treated a little off sometimes by other students. Some of us were out publicly, but others were still closeted and at least 4 are from countries where if their parents found out, they would be murdered, for real. Like, it was a genuine fear they had and discussed with close friends. Little do we know that we've been outed by this RA for months.

I found out eventually, flew into a blinding rage. She'd put me in danger, my residents, her residents, my friends, some of them in real physical danger if they returned home and another student had snitched to their parents. I immediately reported her to Reslife. After two weeks and repeated complaints from other residents and RAs, they sat her and I down for a 'restorative meeting'. She explained that she wasn't comfortable with "gay stuff" so she told a bunch of people at the town hall to try and get help. Reslife asked me to explain "being gay" to her. I about blacked out in anger, how is that my job? I explained that it didn't matter how uncomfortable she was, she'd put people in danger. Reslife asked me to be "more friendly and supportive" so that I don't make her more uncomfortable with queer people. I said it wasn't my job to do that and walked out of the meeting.

She never received any consequences and was a RA for 2 more years. I quit being an RA after this, it really changed my trust in my university.

TLDR: Fellow RA outed a number of RAs and residents. When I filed a complaint, Reslife asked me to explain being gay to her so she'd feel more comfortable. She never got any consequences. Love thinking back to my time as an RA.

I’m a new RA and one of the first things I realized about the work culture was that you avoid reporting other RAs unless absolutely necessary. Well I got put in a situation where I had to and now it seems like that RA got fired. There was serious misconduct and I had a resident approach me about it. It involved resident safety and confidentiality and I went to my RD about it. The RA was not on our staff, and I feel guilty about being the responsible for someone losing their job.

Edit: I do understand the necessity of reporting when resident safety is on the line, I just wasn’t prepared to deal with this type of situation when RA firings are so rare at my University

Basically the title. I want to know how to conduct check-in chats. I'm quite shy, but I'm okay with stepping out of my comfort zone. The challenge is that I have 50 residents and I'm not sure how to have these conversations with them, especially since most of them tend to avoid me. How do you conduct your check-in chats?

Hello all! I just finished my first year as an RD but have moved schools. I'm starting my second year at a small private college. The pay here is a little bit better than my last job, but admittedly, it's still not great. I have been back and forth thinking about getting a second job to help supplement my income. I want to pay down student loans as fast as I can while still putting money into savings and spending some on myself. I've legit never taken a vacation.

Have any professionals ever picked up a second job? What has it been doing? I can see it being challenging while schedule my on-call duties (a full week once every 5 weeks) and still supporting my students after hours.

Thanks in advance~

Question for pro-staff - During the summer months when students/RAs are gone and you are awaiting the incoming year, what is a way that you have engaged RAs prior to their return to campus (i.e intro messages etc.)

Question for RAs - What is something you would have liked to have been done by your Hall Director to help you get comfortable with the team before meeting them in-person?

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone! So, I am about to be an RA for the first time and I am starting to think about ideas for the bulletin boards. I just watched a virtual tour video for my floor, and it shows that I will have 3 boards, 1 right next to my room, 1 close to the room and elevators, and the other one across the community area. I want to make them fun without repeating info on all 3 at once. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Hi all! Slight dilemma at my institution: I have a newly enrolled student who is currently 16 years old and won't turn 17 until after the Fall 24 semester (She was in an accelerated program). We are trying to figure out what other steps we should take besides the guardians and student signing the housing contract together and talking to our legal team...any suggestions??

Note: We currently only have a policy on maximum age of residents, not a minimum age.

Hi guys! I’m a third year RA, about to be my building’s senior RA in the fall and preparing for leading my rather small team into peaceful living conditions. Our previous SRA had a lot of experience with building the RA team as she took ideas from her side job. Now that I’ve inherited the position I feel like I need to uphold the high standard she set so I would really appreciate some tips for creative little things to do!

Here are some examples of cool things she’s done for us: Made us RA Yearbooks Made us an RA Diary for the front desk for when we are bored on duty Made us little booklets for expectations at the beginning of the semester that we could fill in throughout.

And some others!

Any suggestions would be of help 🫣

Newly hired RA here - what are some tips for me to avoid burning out in my new role?

Hi there! Just trying gauge the pulse here. Many of us are either below or far below the new exempt thresholds. What is your institution doing?

Mine is moving to hourly. I have so many questions about how our on-call will work. We just found out.

Hi! New Res Life Coordinator here!

I have been having trouble with building out a duty schedule for the upcoming semester that is equitable in duty days for my RA staff and I would love some help with the layout.

This semester I will have a staff of 19 RAs and our duty schedule is split up into week days and weekends, as follows:

2 RAs are on duty from 6:00pm to 8:00am Sunday - Thursday
2 RAs are on duty from 6:00pm Friday - 6:00pm Sunday.

I have the weekend duty schedule all figured out, so I'm not worried about the 6:00pm Friday - 6:00pm Sunday schedule! The week day schedule is what's throwing me off.

For week days, I have split duty up into an "A week" and a "B week", and my hopes is that if RA 1 and RA 2 are on duty for Monday (A Week), then RA 1 and RA 2 will always be on duty for Monday (A Week).

Does anyone have any suggestions or guidance that they could offer? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi! this is a question to Residence Life professionals. I just got asked to do a second-round, all day interview at a university in DC. This is the first time I have applied for a ResLife role higher than RA and my first official job out of college. What are some ResLife-specific questions that I should expect? Also, what did that full-day interview look like for you?

06/22 Update ****I got an offer! Thanks for the help, everyone!*******

I am currently looking into how other colleges do digital room condition records/ forms. If people had screenshots or stories about how that is done that would be great My school is starting to look into switching from paper to online.

My resident from this past school year died unexpectedly from pneumonia a few days ago. I wouldn’t say I was good friends with him, as we had a resident/RA relationship, but we were at least good neighbors (he lived directly next to me). I got to know his interests, major, sports he was in, clubs he was in, etc. partly because it’s my job, but also he was a sweet person to talk to. The date/location of his funeral/celebration of life was published by his club’s instagram page (as request by his parents) and I was wondering if it would be acceptable for me to go? I don’t think his parents knew me because residents don’t usually talk about their RAs so I don’t want it to be awkward, but at the same time I want to be there and celebrate who he was. What should I do?

I’m just here to rant I guess. I have been a hall director/coordinator at a small institution for 2 years now and will be leaving soon because it is just an awful way to live and work. I am on call every 3rd week, am working late night events multiple nights a week because we over program, and have never once been able to completely achieve all day-to-day office/admin tasks because there’s just too many for my small office to meet. Not to mention I barely make enough money to make ends meet and don’t have great benefits. It’s a constant draining experience of failure and disappointment and tiredness. The worst part is the student response to our office. We’re good people, and we work hard to care for them and the campus, but no matter what they demand things from us like we aren’t human. It’s unfortunate that reslife is treated so poorly by students constantly. It hurts worse to see them worship the ground their faculty walk on but walk all over staff members. I understand why they can be frustrated with issues in their living environments, but some of the things they demand from us are obsurd. I haven’t ever felt like a student cares about what my life is like outside of this job and it has beaten me down so much. There’s no empathy. I cared for higher ed so much before this role, but now I am not so sure that it is right for anybody. I wish that the reslife role normalcy’s would change so drastically across all campuses. Hall directors deserve a better opportunity and better pay and deserve to live a life that’s fulfilling not draining. I’m sure some of you have great experiences in this work, and I’m happy for you if you do. I just wonder if anyone else loves the purpose of their work but in practice feels drained like I do.

Hi, I'm currently and RA who's about to graduate, and considering applying for hall/housing director/coordinator etc. positions and I was wondering where most of everyone's pay ends up going. I know housing is provided, and some schools even provide dining so I'm curious as to how much of my pay I'd be able to save up to then put towards grad school in about 3-4 years.

Im a graduating RA this year, and I love my door decs that my coworkers made me! I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to display them or use them for decor in an actual apartment/non-dorm living?

10k Voices is looking for interceptors to help with research, think like man on the street interviews, could totally be completed by using residents. Pays $25/hr plus a $15 bonus for every 15 completes. Hours and dates are super flexible which is nice, anywhere from 1 - 8 hours. With all the people coming in and out of the dorms 15 completes would be no problem. I linked the application if anyone is interested. LINK

Hi everyone! Been reading through tons of answers on this sub about life as and RA and it's all been enormously helpful. Thank you to everyone who has contributed! Your work is valued tons by people like me (prospective RA's).

I have a few questions that have mostly been answered, however the threads are pretty old. I want to know if anyone has more recent thoughts/experiences on these, particularly from both Liberal Arts and Women's Colleges. I didn't find anyone expressly stating these things and I am curious if it creates a difference in RA experience.

1. How much time does it actually take up? Is it a lot of time on its own or is it more that it can come inconveniently?
2. How far do the responsibilities extend? While I do feel that I could probably help deal with a dorm conflict or two, I worry that I will be taking on a lot of emotional burden and I want to know where most schools ACTUALLY draw the line, not just where they say they do.
3. Is there any difference RAing in a substance-free dorm? Anything I should know? Don't know how that really works so if it's not like that ignore this!
4. How does anyone at a Liberal Arts College/Women's College feel the experience differs?
5. I have significant experience camp counseling. I work with kids from 5-18. I know the experience won't be the same, but will some of those soft skills come in handy?
6. Really anything that would have changed your mind when deciding to become an RA

Thank you guys so much! making considerations for applying next year atm!

I’m a young professional in res life and today was my first time witnessing active self-harm and it’s scary. I can’t unsee what I have seen. But I’m more scared about my own reaction. I think after seeing many mental health incidents I became a little numb to these situations. I’m pretty calm when it comes to handling these situations, and I am worried about this numbness in me. When I saw the wound I already knew there’s nothing I could say or do and based on experience it’s better that I don’t say much because it could be potential triggers. I honestly don’t know how to process all of these. I’m scared that I will be someone who’s numb and cold blooded…

Are you a current resident assistant in the United States? If so, please take this short survey to help researchers understand RA experiences! Here's the link. Please complete it by midnight on March 1st, 2024. Thank you for your participation!

Are there any books, blogs or articles that provide helpful advice for how to navigate different issues you will encounter as a Res Director/Coordinator? Any typical questions to prepare for in an interview?