Housing and Residence Life: Community & Engagement | Competencies & Learning | Care & Case Management | Assessment
Recently, a colleague, Paige Harris, and I were working on a presentation about incorporating joy at work. We were brainstorming about what joy looks like for each person and that each supervisor doesn’t have to create joy in the same way for it to be meaningful for a team. We ended up coming up with... Continue Reading →
A quick and essential disclaimer to start: I have never been one to believe in perfect work/life balance. Or at least not what many folx see as that perfect balance - complete segmentation and no crossing of boundaries between apportioned “work time” and “life time.” Maybe it’s because I am the child of secondary school... Continue Reading →
For housing professionals, move-in day often feels like the finish line. Months of planning culminate in a few hectic days of key distribution, check-in lines, and helping students carry far more belongings than they will ever actually use. Once the halls are full, it can be tempting to shift our attention to the next operational... Continue Reading →
It’s professional development season, a great time to reflect on how you hope to grow and learn this year. Whether you prefer large conferences, smaller institutes, certifications, or something in between, there are so many ways to invest in your development. If your institution provides professional development funding, I highly encourage you to consider joining... Continue Reading →
The beginning of every year in residence life is a concoction of endless training. We spend weeks and countless hours lecturing staff, professionals and students, on their statutory and ethical obligations. We all cover the same sessions on how to do the various aspects of our work from assisting with students in crisis, lockouts, report... Continue Reading →
As Residence Life staff, we are often (digitally) swimming in data. We receive and analyze data related to students, rooms, incidents, programs, duty, inspections, and more. And while many wonderful software companies have made storing and reporting on these data much easier over time - and many of us work with awesome colleagues who can... Continue Reading →
What advice would you give to an incoming first year student? How can you enable them to build community and a sense of belonging? Consider writing your own or sharing this with your incoming residents. One of your first experiences in college is likely going to be meeting the individuals living near you in the... Continue Reading →
I have supervised three sibling groups in the past three years - on the same staff team and one year after the other! Many RDs intentionally do not hire siblings or departments have unwritten expectations that siblings don’t get hired to the same staff team. I was warned not to hire siblings onto the same... Continue Reading →
Can you believe summer is over? While the actual calendar says there's still plenty of the year left, anyone who works in Residence Life knows exactly what's coming. Goodbye to quiet residence halls, summer planning sessions, and those ambitious plans to finally create the perfect new process that will solve everyone’s problems. Maybe next year,... Continue Reading →
As move-in season approaches, many new staff members find themselves more nervous about interacting with parents than students. We hear stories of our peers’ past experiences, and maybe have some lingering in the back of our brains as well. The truth is that most parents are not trying to be difficult. They're doing something incredibly... Continue Reading →
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 “adult” 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 →
There is a strange transition that happens when you move from entry-level housing work into mid-level leadership. For years, many of us watch Assistant Directors, Associate Directors, and Directors from a distance and create assumptions about what their jobs - and lives - must look like. We hear things like, “You’ll lose money if you... Continue Reading →
Whimsy has become an internet phenomenon in the year of 2026 - and for good reason! The concept of whimsy has helped bring joy and fun into small moments during day-to-day life. From adding sprinkles to a coffee to getting lost on purpose, whimsy is how a lot of people are intentionally slowing down and... Continue Reading →
For many of us in on-campus housing, we plan for it the entire year - Move-In. It’s become the main event, and that’s understandable: it’s our first impression, involves overlapping processes, and provides a rather intimate view of what we do and how we do it to every stakeholder imaginable. And because of all this,... Continue Reading →
Belonging is a continued focus of Student Affairs research, often looking at how students feel belonging to institutions. Housing is often looked at on college campuses as a supercharger for belonging, when I did a quick online search I noticed that belonging or connection came up in every single Resident Advisor posting I looked at.... Continue Reading →
There is something about a long drive that refuses to let your mind stay in one place. The pavement seems to stretch on forever in front of you. You don’t see anything familiar behind you. Mile after mile, stop after stop, conversations replay, memories and feelings resurface, a busy mind becomes quite yet filled with... Continue Reading →
Belonging is a continued focus of Student Affairs research, often looking at how students feel belonging to institutions. Resident Advisors are often looked to on college campuses as a supercharger for belonging, when I did a quick online search I noticed that belonging or connection came up in every single Resident Advisor posting I looked... Continue Reading →
Throughout the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, there is a great deal of a spike in the reliance on AI in today’s 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 →
