Residence life and education, residential curriculum and curricular approaches, student housing, and technology.
With COVID-19 changing the way we think of residence life, more and more schools are looking for diverse ways to build community, communicate important information, and engage residents. At Roompact, we've noticed a shift in our schools software usage to include more communications via text message. Text messaging can be an excellent tool to help... Continue Reading →
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a unique challenge for maintaining residential education and campus community in a time of social distancing and abrupt transitions to online and hybridized learning format. The role of residential education, however, is more critical than ever. Aiding students in identifying support networks, making connections with others, and the sharing of timely and... Continue Reading →
On Friday, April 3, ACPA and Roompact co-hosted a webinar to discuss ways residence life departments were utilizing RAs and student staff members to enrage with students and build community while residence hall operations are either closed or otherwise disrupted. The posted recording of the webinar is available for free below, after an initial registration... Continue Reading →
We’re big fans of Google Forms here at Roompact. We use it ourselves for meetings and whenever we’re gathering feedback from our team members. It is a really user friendly and simple tool that gets the job done. Within residence life and residential education, it has become more apparent that Google Forms is king. It... Continue Reading →
It is amazing how quickly our work has evolved in such a short period of time. As the above animated GIF shows (originally produced as a video by the team at BestReviews), many of our former paper-based and manual processes have moved to digital.  What is perhaps most striking is how so much of our lives have... Continue Reading →
The start of the academic year means that we welcome a new group of students to campus. It is a seminal time for many students, and their first year, in particular, can bring forward a number of rapid developmental changes. As peer leaders in their communities, resident assistants can heavily influence, and shape these student... Continue Reading →
Technology has always impacted the way we communicate, but within the past decade, this has accelerated. Folks in housing and residence life have witnessed some of these changes first hand, including students not reading or responding to email, roommate conflicts being addresses through chat apps, and bullying occurring on social media platforms. Mobile devices, cloud... Continue Reading →
Employing a Residential Curriculum entails building a residence life program that is learning-centered. Previous movements within residence life focused more narrowly on wellness or community. Moving towards a learning-centered orientation is often more intentional, more transformational, more holistic, and leads to better outcomes for students. Making this shift, however, does not necessarily entail that one doesn’t engage in education around issues of... Continue Reading →
Roompact "Perspective" posts are opportunities for individual staff members to work out ideas and provide their individual thoughts and opinions on a given topic. Now, more than ever, residence life professionals are competing for students' time. Technological change has brought about a revolution of choice for self directing one's learning and a multitude options for... Continue Reading →
