Published On: August 17th, 2019Categories: Uncategorized

New University of Colorado Boulder students will arrive on campus Monday, but the resident advisers who will help guide them through the year have already been in Boulder for weeks.

While many assume universities employ RAs to act solely as policy enforcers in dormitories, they are actually there to build a community and provide support, said Craig Kuehnert, Residence Life associate director for student engagement.

“There’s certainly a stigma around RAs being the hammer,” Kuehnert said, but “the crux of what they do is to build community.”

That includes holding people accountable for their decisions, especially those that impact others in the community, but it also means being a nonjudgmental person students can comfortably talk with.

Dylan Stanton, a senior studying entrepreneurship who is entering his third year as an RA, said he’s learned how to be a good resource for students who might feel like they have no one.

In his first year as an RA, one of his residents almost overdosed on drugs, Stanton said. Residents found the student and brought Stanton to him. After the student got help, he “debriefed” with Stanton about what happened.

They talked about his decisions, and the student said it was nice to have someone to talk with because he felt that he couldn’t talk with family or friends, which is why he turned to the drugs, Stanton said. Now, the student is sober and back at school, he said.

Stanton became an RA after having a less-than-stellar one his freshman year, he said. He realized RAs had an opportunity to make a greater impact.

It was also a good way to learn more about the university and build his resume. As someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, Stanton has been able to practice different leadership styles throughout the years to see what works best for him.

“I think it’s a very low-risk environment for personal development,” he said.

Others, like Bryce Glacken, a junior studying aerospace engineering, took the job to meet more people while making a positive impact on the campus community. He became an RA last spring to replace another student in the job, and came back because of the great relationships he built, he said.

Kirti Dasari, a sophomore studying integrated physiology, joined the RA team for the first time this year. After working in mentorship programs in high school, she wanted to try having an impact on her fellow college students.

University of Colorado Boulder resident assistants draw on a flag during a team building exercise on Monday at the Villiage Center at Williams Villiage on the CU Boulder campus.

“Meaningful relationships and making a positive impact is important,” Dasari said, adding that she wants her residents to know she is someone who can help them with issues.

All RAs go through intensive training for about 10 days, according to Kuehnert. Both senior RAs and new RAs come to campus earlier, with senior RAs learning more about leadership and mentorship, as well as how to work with law enforcement, and new RAs getting more time to digest the basics. Senior RAs have some previous experience in the job. Each residence hall has one senior RA who supervises the other RAs assigned to that building.

The training includes team-building activities so staff will work efficiently together; information on campus resources so RAs can appropriately refer students to them; and training on crisis response, which can include a variety of things, Kuehnert said.

There are about 9,000 students in the campus community, which means “incidents will happen,” he said. Each RA is usually responsible for about 30-35 students in the hall where they live.

“Whatever a human can do, can happen,” he said.

CU Boulder employs about 260 RAs, about half of which will return to the position the following year.

Landing a position is competitive because RAs receive free room and board for their work. The school hires about 125 new people each year out of about 500 applications, Kuehnert said. They usually lose only about 10 RAs over winter breaks, generally due to unforeseen circumstances.

“We look for people who are, at a very basic level, community builders,” he said.

They also try to match the RAs to the “theme” of the buildings. For example, they place an engineering student in a residence hall for engineering majors.

The first year can be a “big learning experience,” Stanton said. He had to learn how to set boundaries on his people-pleasing personality, he said, which was making him burn out.

“I started out leaving my door open, taking them on hiking and tubing trips,” he said.

While Dasari said there was a lot of information to take in the first few days, getting to know both the old and new staff is “comforting.” It helps to know that they are all “going in together,” she said.

Throughout the year, RAs are expected to build community and also serve as the “eyes and ears” for the campus. When they notice abnormal behaviors, they can be the first to alert university officials about who needs support, Kuehnert said.

But training can look “a little bit different every year” as CU Boulder adjusts it to emerging student and community trends, Kuehnert said.

This year, student awareness around mental health is increasing, so CU Boulder is making sure that RAs know how to make referrals and provide resources for students. This could mean counseling, and it could also mean simply connecting them with a like-minded club so they feel less alone, Kuehnert said.

Residence Life also has a curriculum called “Residential Experience” that RAs carry out.

“Learning happens in a lot of places,” Kuehnert said. “There are life skills people develop by living on their own for the first time.”

The Residential Experience maps out when issues may come up for students throughout the year and requires RAs to plan timely awareness campaigns or activities around those issues. It could be something as simple as posting a bulletin board with information, or offering a whole program on the issue.

For example, RAs will hold two meetings at the beginning of the year to introduce everyone and then set community expectations for the culture students want to foster in the residence hall, Kuehnert said.

Other topics that come up early in the year are diversity and inclusion, ideally ensuring students learn about living with someone from a different culture before any issues arise.

Issues that come up at the state or federal levels of government are also included in training. For example, Kuehnert said Residence Life staff watched the laws dealing with concealed and open carry gun permits to see if they would need to change how RAs deal with weapons in a residence hall.

Right now, he said the emphasis is on diversity and immigration, so staff are making sure RAs have the resources to deal with those issues.

University of Colorado Boulder sophomore Sky McKenna, left, and senior Renee Gagne work together during a resident assistant team building exercise on Monday at the Villiage Center at Williams Villiage on the CU Boulder campus.

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