RA360: Recognition, Appreciation, and Celebration
TL;DR
Creating a community that celebrates its members is important. In your role as a student staff member, there are strategies and tools that you can use to recognize and appreciate the strengths and contributions of your community members.
Have you ever received an award or been recognized for your efforts? It feels good, doesn’t it? Or maybe someone organized a surprise party for you. It probably made you feel special.
Infusing your community with recognition, appreciation, and celebration can make it fun and help members feel like they belong.
Creating A Celebrative Community
“A college is a celebrative community, one in which the heritage of the institution is remembered and where rituals affirming both tradition and change are widely shared.”
– Ernest Boyer
Think about spaces that you’ve felt welcomed and valued? What did the communities look like in those spaces? What did they feel like? Ernest Boyer wrote a lot about community in colleges and universities, and established six principles that campus communities should seek to embrace. One of those was creating “celebrative” communities.
- When creating a community on your floor, how can you establish traditions that instill pride?
- How can you celebrate individual members and group achievements?
- How can your promote your community to take ownership in celebrating the group and each other?
Celebrate the Little Wins
In a thriving community, not every celebration has to be a big event. As a leader in your community, make it a habit to notice and applaud the “little wins” happening on your floor. Did someone ace a tough quiz, nail a presentation, or simply make it through a stressful week of classes? Celebrate it! This could mean a round of applause at the floor meeting, a shout‑out in our group chat, or a surprise batch of cookies in the lounge when everyone finishes a grueling week. By treating everyday accomplishments as worth celebrating, you send the message that each resident’s efforts matter. Over time, this mindset becomes contagious. Residents will start cheering each other on, and your floor will buzz with a supportive energy.
Creating a celebrative community can help you build a space where residents feel like they’re included and that they belong.
Holidays
Want to inject a little bit of fun onto your floor? Try celebrating the occasional “oddball” holiday… like National Pizza Day or Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. This page will give you some ideas for whacky holidays to celebrate with your community.
Gratitude Jars: Little Notes, Big Impact
Place a jar in a common area along with slips of paper and pens. Invite residents to write down small notes of appreciation or shout‑outs to others and drop them in the jar (anonymously if they want). During floor meetings or at the end of the month, shake up the jar and read a few notes aloud. As a bonus, quiet or less outgoing residents get a chance to be recognized in a low-key way, and everyone learns about the good deeds happening around them.
“Prioritizing gratitude can make a huge impact on the norms established within your community. Celebrate the great things happening with your residents—academic successes, athletic achievements, acts of kindness, positive behaviors you want to reinforce. Highlighting the good is far more powerful than focusing on the bad. And don’t forget to recognize the good work of your custodial and facilities staff. They deserve to be seen and celebrated, too!”
“Of The Month Awards”
Does your campus have a chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH)? NRHH is a an organization that seeks to recognize the work and achievements of staff and student leaders working on the residence halls. One of the recognition efforts NRHH sponsors is “Of The Month” Awards, or OTMs.
If your campus has an NRHH chapter, this article will give you some tips on crafting that perfect OTM!
Kudos Corners and Shout‑Out Boards
One simple way to spark peer recognition is by creating a “kudos corner” on your floor. It’s a public shout‑out board where residents can post thank-you notes and compliments for each other. This could be a whiteboard in the lounge or a bulletin board decorated with sticky notes of appreciation. It’s like your floor’s own social media feed of positivity (but with paper and markers).
You Deserve Some Recognition, Too!
The third Wednesday of February has become an unofficial “RA Appreciation” day–a day to recognize RA and student staff members who work in the residence halls. Your department may do something special on this day, but you could also use it to recognize your fellow team members.
Floor Superstars and Fun Awards
Who doesn’t love a little award now and then? Consider starting a “Star of the Floor” tradition where, each week or month, you spotlight one resident who has made a positive impact. This could be someone who helped plan a social, showed extra kindness, or even just brought great vibes to the community. Announce your floor superstar and celebrate them. You can even present a goofy handmade award or a fun traveling trophy that lives in the winner’s room until it’s passed to the next honoree.
Questions To Ponder:
- How can you create a community that’s celebrative?
- How can you recognize your residents and their achievements?
RA360 Outcomes:
RAs and student staff members will be able to:
- Explain why recognition and celebration are important for building community.
- List strategies student staff members can use to recognize and celebrate their community members.
More To Explore
RA360 is a set of resources organized around skills, topics and competencies relevant to Resident Advisors and similar related student staff positions in college and university residence halls.
