The Res Life Primer
It's not quite an ABC's to Res Life, but it's a good introduction to the world of living and working in college dorms by the department that oversees it all - Residence Life and Housing
So, I threw out this question on Reddit - what was “that” incident in your dorm? In the first three days, it got over 500 comments and 330,000 views. A lot of shit has gone down in dorms including a lot of stories about shit. Some of the stories are tragic. Some are disgusting. Some are confounding. Yet, none of them are all that surprising when you’re talking about a building of 18-20-year-olds packed together with loads of free time and little supervision. That little supervision comes from the department on your local college campus called Res Life. They’re the ones who deal with and clean up the shit that goes down in the dorms. If this major department that takes care of everyone who lives on a college continues to go unnoticed and unsupported, shit will hit the fan.
But, before we dig deeper into dorms, we need to start with the basics. There will be plenty of time for sharing stories about distressed students, RAs, what the heck and RD is and does. First, we need to understand what even is Res Life. When you live and work in dorms, you discover they have their own norms and language. I don’t want you to stumble over all the jargon when I talk about students slamming through a glass window while I was on “duty” or how my very first “behind closed doors” scenario helped me save a student’s life years later. I want you to enjoy/embrace/learn from the ride, and to do that, I don’t want to lose you in any of these terms that have become second nature to me. It’s not that I don’t trust you to follow along. It’s more so for me.
I’ve lost myself in this world of “IRs,” “welfare checks,” and “students of concern,” and everything I write and say is partly me trying to find my way out. The other part is to make sense of what I’ve seen and experienced. And the last part of this journey is to make sure all the years I spent living in dorms, supervising students, and dealing with Res Life, wasn’t a waste, that maybe someone will learn from my mistakes and lessons. If you are interested in more of the day-to-day challenges/excitement/minutiae of my work living and working in the dorms, you can check out my running journal here. While you’re here, and hopefully continue to be here, we’ll explore some of the bigger ideas of living and working in dorms. To do that, we’ll start with a primer on common phrases and sayings working in college housing.
Res Life
Dorms/Residence Halls
RAs
RDs
Residents
Duty
Write-Ups/Documentation
Rounds
Quiet Hours
Programs
1:1s
Welfare Checks
RA Training
Boards/Door Decs
Opening/Closing
Behind Closed Doors
1. Res Life
-the college department that oversees the staffing and operation of student housing, a combination of the maintenance and upkeep of the physical living spaces, and the community development efforts
-synonyms: Residence Life & Housing, Housing, Residence Education, Residential Life
Most people know the department that oversees the dorms on campus collectively as housing. When I mention Res Life, I’m encompassing the entire system - the decisions they make, their ideals, their norms, etc. While RAs and RDs are essential parts of Res Life, I often separate Res Life as a whole from them given how often they are at odds. When I mention Res Life, it’s everything concerning dorm operations and the leadership that makes decisions.
2. Dorms/Residence Halls
-the physical buildings on a college campus that house college students, as well as some staff and faculty
It’s important to mention both terms. To most people, normal people, college students live in dorms. It’s the most commonly used phrase to describe student housing. Even most people who work on a college campus refer to them as dorms. To those who work in Res Life, they are residence halls. It’s part of their pitch to distinguish a place where people sleep (which students and parents can find anywhere) from a community where learning and development happens. So, according to Res Life, technically, they are different things, but we all know what we mean when we call them dorms.
3. RAs
-the upperclassmen who are hired to work in the dorms with direct responsibilities over a floor or wing of students (usually no more than 50); they are part friend, part advisor, part counselor, part policy enforcer, part whatever a student needs at 2 am
-synonyms: resident advisors, resident assistants
For free room and board, it seems like a no-brainer as to whether the position is worth it; however, the experiences of RAs run a broad spectrum based on the school, the culture of Res Life, one’s approach to the job, and how they work with their supervisor - the RD. There will be a lot to say about RAs as the most essential components of Res Life.
4. RDs
-the professional or graduate staff member who oversees a dorm or collection of dorms and a team of RAs
-synonyms: residence directors, resident directors, community directors (CDs), residential community coordinators (RCCs), residence life coordinators (RLCs), hall directors (HDs), area coordinators (ACs), community coordinators (CCs), residence coordinators (RCs)
The least known members of the Res Life team, who are second only to RAs in how vital they are to a dorm’s operations. They oversee all the day-to-day operations of a dorm, which includes but is not limited to: event planning, student code of conduct oversight, student welfare management, and direct supervision of the RAs. They are literally the adults in the room. More often than not, they live in the dorm they oversee, meaning part of their total compensation is free room and board. However, whether that is worth their experience as middle management in Res Life is debatable. Their experiences are far more complex and much less thankful, but their contributions to a successful dorm operation are incalculable. Within those day-to-day operations, an RD is also: Therapist, Mentor, Parent, Counselor, Detective, Interior Decorator, Event Planner, Cheerleader, Coach, Referee, Lie Detector, Communication Manager, PR Specialist, Translator, Negotiator, Judge, Politician, and Advocate to name a few.
5. Residents
-the occupants of dorms; the students
In any other arena, they are occupants, but on a college campus, they are residents. Any time the term “resident” is used, it will about to the regular students (not including RAs) who live in the dorms. For example, residents can be the absolute worst when they don’t know how to respectfully talk to one another.
6. Duty
-a designated shift, usually outside of business hours, either for an evening or a weekend, during which you are the first responder to resident needs
-synonym: on-call
There’s RA duty and there’s RD duty. Typically, RAs need to stay in their dorm for the evening (unless they have responsibilities at a community front desk), and they respond to any call from a student in need. Someone playing music too loud? There’s an RA on duty to address it. A party in someone’s room with underage drinking? There’s an RA that needs to break it up. Someone locked out at 3 am? Unfortunately, there’s an RA on duty to the rescue.
RDs on-call deal with fewer situations but more intense ones. If that party with underage drinking involves a passed-out student or guests who won’t cooperate, there’s an RD on duty to handle it. If the resident who just needs to talk shares much darker thoughts, an RD on duty has to be called to the scene. A resident is on their way to the hospital for a medical concern, a drug overdose, is overly intoxicated, or is thinking of potentially harming themselves, at some schools, an RD will be there at the hospital with them.
And with every situation/incident, there’s a report that needs to be written.
7. Write-Ups/Documentations
-the reports written by RAs and RDs for every incident they handle involving a policy violation or a student concern
-synonym: incident report (IR)
I remember my first year working in Res Life. They introduced the term “documentation” to replace “write-ups.” They wanted to change how this interaction was framed for both residents and the RAs that would have to write them. No one bought it. If you get documented, it’s because you messed up, so trouble was inevitable in the form of a meeting with the RD or a dean. Being documented is supposed to sound less harsh for residents. It’s supposed to ease any pushback you get from residents. But when they hear you say “I’m just documenting the situation,” they know it’s the same as getting in trouble. As with the terms dorms, you can’t fool people into thinking it’s anything different it actually is. If you’re caught violating quiet hours or having alcohol in your room when you're under 21, you’re going to be written up. I would argue that the process of writing these reports isn’t just as drudgerous as dealing with the incidents themselves. They have to be well-written, detailed in every action taken, and written right after incidents take place. That means, when you’re finished dealing with a string of incidents on a hellacious night of duty, you can’t just go straight to bed and try to forget everything that happened. On the contrary, you have to try to remember everything that happened and make it make sense in an official report. Even if it is at 3 am. Not that I’ve experienced this on multiple occasions.
8. Rounds
-walking around and through your assigned duty area, usually 2-3 three times an evening, to address facility and resident concerns
A quick tip for RAs: 1) Be aware if your school has card readers (pretty much all of them). Res Life can track who does rounds and who doesn’t by accessing data every time you use your card or not. That’s how my boss let me know my entire staff hadn’t done them all semester. I’ll tell that story later. This leads seamlessly to 2) Have solidarity among your team as to whether you’re doing them or not. If you’re going to decide to blow off rounds, at least don’t do it as a lone ranger. This can fracture a team. No one likes doing them, but most RAs recognize their importance enough to at least begrudgingly do them. If you’re the one, or part of the few, that doesn’t do them, you lose respect from your peers. Again, no one likes doing them, but no one likes the person who blows off the thing that they are doing, especially when everyone gets credit for it equally. That’s how I learned from one of my RAs that another RA on the team wasn’t doing them, and another let residents know ahead of time when rounds were being done so they could avoid getting in trouble. This was a different staff I oversaw from the one that collectively didn’t do rounds. Fun times supervising RAs!
9. Quiet Hours
-the designated time frame in which excessive, continuous noise in the dorms is prohibited
Perhaps the number one answer on the board regarding the most common incident an RA needs to address (even more than alcohol and drug violations). It’s easy to see why - students are loud. I gained a more profound understanding of the complexities of this policy the first time I lived off campus, like a regular adult. I’ve been the one to knock on someone’s door telling them they were too loud, to which they complied. I’ve been the one to knock on someone’s door telling them they were too loud, to which they didn’t comply, thus prompting me to call security. I’ve been the one called on who was told I was being too loud, unjustly may I add. In every situation, it seemed like the biggest hassle in the world. It’s a nuisance you never want to deal with. Quiet, or at least noise-controlled living, is something we feel entitled to for any housing situation we pay for. Despite my years of conflict management experience and empathy training, I despised the other person at the end of those complaints. I imagine most students do, which is why they rarely approach the person causing the issue themselves, and why we in Res Life hate having to deal with it as the third party involved. And these are supposed to be the low-level issues Res Life deals with!
10. Programs
-community events organized and hosted by RAs to bring residents together for community building and usually some other learning outcome
Do residents even like programs? I’ve seen the most elaborate, well-financed, well-advertised programs be presented to residents, and the only thing that will really get them to go is their RA begging them to. Even free food, the number one incentive for any program, pails in comparison to an almost infinite number of options residents have on their own for entertainment, especially at bigger schools. However, the more complex, fancy, and learning-outcomes laced you make them, the more Res Life will like them, regardless of residents like them or not.
Programs are the lifeblood of Res Life and a Student Life office. More than getting residents together, Res Life wants to see that residents learned something, or at least you tried to teach them something. Never mind that students don’t really learn much from programs, and the more you try to make programs anything other than socially-based, the less likely students will be interested. Programs are ostensibly for the residents, but in actuality, your audience is Res Life.
11. One-on-Ones
-regularly scheduled, individual meetings RAs have with their RDs
1:1s can be the best part of an RD’s day or slightly better than getting a root canal. It all depends on the relationship between RA and RD. If one is not feeling the other, too bad, you have at least 20 of these over the course of an academic year you have to get through. For RDs, they like to use these as an opportunity to get to know their RA, to find out about everything going on in their life, if the RA will allow it. To the extent which an RA trusts their RD, will determine how much they share.
12. Welfare Checks
-a check-up on a student for whom there are concerns
When there’s a concern about a student’s well-being (e.g. they’re not going to class, they missed a counseling appointment, a parent called concerned because they haven’t heard back from their son or daughter, etc.), an RA or RD will be called upon to “put eyes” on them, classifying them as a “resident of concern.” Oftentimes, these welfare checks can be awkward. A resident may not know they are someone of concern or how serious the concern is. Student welfare is just as much a concern on college campuses as academic success, and Res Life is on the front lines when it comes to those who live on campus. Res Life has its protocols, and students respond to them in varying ways, which is its own wrinkle in the resident-Res Life relationship. Then you have the RAs and RDs in the middle of it, responding from everything from the mundane to the monumental - seeds of RAs’ discontent in their roles and burnout/compassion fatigue in RDs. Everyone is affected by welfare issues.
13. RA Training
-formal all-day training sessions for RAs to teach them soft skills and technical skills needed to do the job; their training takes place a few weeks before regular residents are set to move in
-synonyms: fall training, training
I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys training. They go all day. Sessions run from the rudimentary (programming) to the emotionally taxing (QPR, Behind Closed Doors). Everyone is tired by the end of it, but at least you have opening, the start of classes, and opening week events right after training is done. I’m getting tired just writing about it.
14. Boards/DoorDecs
-boards: a centralized bulletin board on your floor that you’re responsible for decorating with information and a catchy slogan
-door decs: personalized, miniaturized decorations for your residents’ doors with their names on it
-short for: bulletin boards and door decorations
I have a bulletin board story that I’m saving. It was perhaps the defining moment of my Res Life career and a major reason why I got my first RD job. I can’t wait to share it. For now, what I can share about boards and door decs: they were one of my least favorite parts of the job as an RA, they are a foundational part of why Res Life doesn’t see residence halls as dorms, they are one of the primary markers as to whether you’ll have an RA you can rely upon. I’ve seen some amazing boards done by my RAs, and I’ve seen residents vandalize them in both sober and drunken states. How much residents notice or care about them, and how much that plays into their respect for the dorm can’t fully be known. Like training and programs, whether they are effective in practice, or in theory, they make sense for what Res Life wants to accomplish and thus will be a mainstay.
15. Opening/Closing
-opening: the period of time when residents are welcomed into the dorms to move-in for the year
-closing: the period of time when residents’ housing contract for the semester or academic year ends and they need to move out
Do you remember that feeling of excitement as a student at the end of a school year? As an RA, you have to curtail that excitement a little longer than any other resident to close your dorm. That means checking rooms, taking down flyers, putting in maintenance requests, checking keys if applicable, and logging all damages. These are laborious tasks, but at least you have time to get them done. For opening, time is not a luxury. You have to get everything ready for residents to come to campus - check keys, put up door decs, put up boards, and have your programs planned, all during training, not to mention regular student stuff you have to do. Then there’s actual move-in day, when you’re energy is at its lowest, but it’s demanded to be at its highest for families and residents roaming all over campus. These are perhaps the most draining periods of an RA’s year at a time when energy and enthusiasm are at their lowest. If there was something I wish parents and residents knew in more detail before they arrived on campus, it would be this.
It’s difficult to say which is worse. You never truly know what you’re going to get with either. For opening, you’re so wired from long days of training that you’re running on a hidden reservoir of energy long after your mind and body have been depleted, so you’re almost desensitized to everything. With room checks taking place before move-in, most preventable issues should be taken care of, though there’s always something. Closing is a mixed bag. The euphoria of having made it through another year is tempered a bit by the attrition of having spent the last eight months dealing with…everything and everyone.
16. Behind Closed Doors (BCD)
-a hands-on simulation that new RAs go through to get experience dealing with common issues in the dorms acted out by current RAs
It can be terrifying for new RAs, and it’s usually the only enjoyable part of training for returners. New RAs are thrown into the fire, watched by their peers to see how they respond to things they’ve all experienced - roommate conflicts, a party with underage drinking, a suspected marijuana user. It really isn’t meant to be a test or hazing of new RAs, but you can’t help but feel apprehensive. The first BCD I was thrown into was a suicide scenario. I didn’t encounter another situation like it until I became an RD. It varies what you actually experience as an RA, but at the very least BCDs present a time of true camaraderie and teamwork. Everyone takes it seriously. Everyone wants to see new RAs succeed. If there was a way to bottle that level of commitment, efficacy, and enjoyment into the rest of training, maybe a quarter of the staff wouldn’t try finding ways to get out of parts of it before coming back to campus.
Bonus - Building Community
The raison d’etre of Res Life. When in doubt, whether you’re an RA or RD or aspiring to be either, you want to frame anything you do within the context of building or supporting community. Res Life can’t get enough of it. Community building, community impact, community concern, community threat. If you just say the word enough, Res Life will think you really care about what they care about, instead of what you’re actually there for - free housing.
Conclusion
That about covers it, at least the major categories and terms of Res Life. Now, we dive into the good stuff - good RAs, horrible residents, and at times toxic Res Life culture. And there is A LOT to talk about. I could ramble, but I’ll try not to. Everything I say may not be right, but it will be based on experiences I had living and working on college campuses, being exposed to thousands of students, supervising hundreds of RAs, and trying not to pay a dime in rent in the process.