As a student staff member or “RA,” you have the exciting opportunity to create a sense of community within your university residence hall floor. Building a strong and supportive community fosters connection, engagement, and personal growth among residents. In this blog post, we will share essential tips to help you cultivate a vibrant and inclusive... Continue Reading →
Designing Effective Residence Life Student Staff Evaluations
When is the last time you gave your RA or student staff evaluation process a through review? Given the myriad of responsibilities of residence life professionals, staff evaluations can be easy to overlook until the time comes for a formal review. Good residence life departmental practice, however, should involve a continuous annual review of position... Continue Reading →
Don’t Be Creepy: Training Student Staff For Genuine Intentional Conversations
Intentional Conversations are one-on-one meetings between student staff and their residents guided by a suggested set of questions and prompts that are developmentally appropriate and situated within the context of a resident’s experience. This post is one of a multi-part series examining and providing suggestions for residence life and education departments that utilize Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Developing an Intentional Conversation Curriculum Guide for Student Staff
Intentional Conversations are one-on-one meetings between student staff and their residents guided by a suggested set of questions and prompts that are developmentally appropriate and situated within the context of a resident’s experience. This post is one of a multi-part series examining and providing suggestions for residence life and education departments that utilize Intentional Conversations... Continue Reading →
Residential Curriculum Element #6: Student Staff Are Utilized in Roles Appropriate To Their Skill Development
In residence life and education, student staff members are some of our most important partners in the educational process. They are our front-line on-the-ground staff and are integral to promoting student learning. As peers, student staff members are often best positioned to help their fellow students in ways that professional staff members can't. There are also some roles,... Continue Reading →
What is a Residential Curriculum? Curricular Approach? Residential Learning Model?
The terms “residential curriculum” or “curricular approach” are used to describe an intentional specifically-structured way of promoting learning in college and university student affairs programs. Borrowing from techniques utilized by classroom-based teachers, the curricular approach to student affairs designs a series of successive learning and engagement opportunities for students that are measurable against defined objectives.... Continue Reading →