Housing and Residence Life: Community & Engagement | Competencies & Learning | Care & Case Management | Assessment
Full-time live-in staff might feel like they are the oldest person in the building. Maybe feel a little like they are the supposed โadultโ in their residence hall who is there to follow up with student conduct issues, students of concern, and make sure that their Resident Assistants are doing their jobs. They could feel... Continue Reading →
This webinar introduces supervisors of student and professional staff teams in residential life to participatory processes as a foundation for effective team leadership. We'll cover practical tools for inclusive decision-making, active listening, and co-creating community norms and agreements with your team. You'll also learn how to use circles as a structure for building connection and navigating difficult conversations, alongside frameworks for approaching conflict and accountability in your residential community.
Throughout the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, there is a great deal of a spike in the reliance on AI in todayโs college students. One of the more concerning areas that AI is appealing to students is using user data to inform responses, catering to an audience in a way that tells an individual what they... Continue Reading →
Bring On Opening! As residence hall opening season approaches, we've got updates for you and some helpful information to make sure you're prepared and ready. First things first, check out the opening checklist to make sure your Roompact environment is ready to go: Review The Opening Checklist โฌ๏ธ Software Updates โฌ๏ธ We've made a number... Continue Reading →
Commonly, the advice given to students experiencing loneliness is encouraging them to join a student organization or other group. This isnโt necessarily bad advice, but it is definitely not enough. Students experiencing loneliness are generally seeking out connection and support from a social lens, and when we as professionals just encourage joining an organization, it... Continue Reading →
With the release of Toy Story 5, and topics floating around on student loneliness, I couldnโt help but notice a connection. I remember seeing the fourth Toy Story in a drive-in and thinking โthatโs it, this is the last of these amazing movies.โ But the creators saw a market years later that I had never... Continue Reading →
Creating a sense of belonging and an atmosphere that we often describe as a studentโs new โhome away from homeโ is central to the work that we do as Housing and Residence Life practitioners. But, there isnโt a singular โrightโ way to do itโ if there was, wouldnโt we all be doing so uniformly? And... Continue Reading →
Abstract Oftentimes, RAs will resist a new process or complain about how a problem is solved, but asking for their input does not always lead to a positive solution. This session will show supervisors how to use design thinking with their RAs to solve problems and create processes. Outcomes Participants will be able to define... Continue Reading →
IT'S BACK! Roompact is holding its ninth annual door dec contest! This contest is open to student staff (RAs, CAs, etc.) at schools who currently use Roompact's software on their campus. Create a door dec with the name โRoompactโ on it and email it to us at contests@roompact.com from your institutional email address (*.edu) with... Continue Reading →
Summer training for student staff members is usually jam-packed with learning policies, absorbing information, and acting out real-life crisis scenarios. Although all of this is incredibly important for being a trained student staff member, we often forget that there are many ways student staff members can and should learn to incorporate fun into their roles.... Continue Reading →
Abstract It's easy to copy and paste RA Training from year to year or from other institutions, but what does YOUR campus need? This session will bring practitioners together to discuss approaches to planning RA training whether you are starting from scratch or looking to improve upon the foundations you have in place. With reflective... Continue Reading →
How many residence life trainings have you been to? 10? 15? Do you see your staff spending more time on their laptops and phones, rather than engaging? I started to feel that over the past few years. Yes, staff still know how to do their jobs once they have sat through boring training, but how... Continue Reading →
Abstract "Being a live-in professional means youโre always onโnavigating resident crises, supervising student staff, building community, and somehow trying to have a life of your own. Itโs easy to slip into survival mode or feel like you have to โperformโ leadership instead of actually feeling like yourself in the role. Using The 15 Commitments of... Continue Reading →
Abstract High engagement, low stakes, and improvisation are at the core of this new game-based learning approach to staff training. Originally designed for Graduate and Full-Time Incident Response training, Duty & Dragons uses game mechanics from Role-Playing Table-Top Games (RPTTG) to provide an innovative and effective approach to practicing real-world scenarios, conflict navigation, and other... Continue Reading →
We Couldn't Do It Without You We've released a ton of software features in the past few months and all of your feedback has been invaluable. Thank you for help and understanding as we work through these updates. With your help, these beta releases will be ready to go by the fall! We developed a... Continue Reading →
Roompact's bulletin board competition is now closed and we're ready to announce the winners. We received over 130 entires (!), so picking ten was incredibly difficult. Some boards did an excellent job at educating residents, while others were just beautiful! We tried to select a diverse group of winners that reflected the diversity of the... Continue Reading →
Picture it, Summertimes. Perhaps youโre overseeing a project that couldnโt get done during the academic year or maybe youโre coordinating summer student housing or working with camps and conferences. Thereโs something about summer though that feels much more relaxed for many of us working in residence life. That is until July creeps up on us... Continue Reading →
Among professionals and student staff alike, there are few times as painstaking and perhaps controversial as returning staff training. Generally, responses can come back to โI learned this last year (or the year before),โ โI could be doing other things right now,โ and โthis is too longโ among returning staff. The reality is that annual... Continue Reading →
