Living On Campus Is Developing A Sense Of Belonging And Forming Relationships Within The Community

As a resident assistant, I upheld and am continuing to uphold University Housing’s mission of ensuring affordable, comfortable, secure housing on campus while promoting the academic success and personal growth of the residents. From crisis management to programming for the community, my responsibilities varied to be an enforcer of the policies but also to be a friend to all. I built quality relationships with each of my residents to establish an authentic community among the diverse population. Whether it was simply helping

Hence, students must learn to properly nourish their bodies with a nutritional diet, enough sleep, and limited intake of alcohol or dugs. Next, students must feel both safe in regards to financial and personal security. Financially security is often what both dormers and commuters alike struggle with, and often take on 20+ hours of work (a damaging effect on school work), or have no gaurantee of being able to afford to come back to school the next year. Also, students learn in college and enjoy their time there if they feel safe enough to explore the campus and walk at night, or use the bus. Hence a low crime rate should be necessary. Thirdly, belonging means students feel they have close friends and family to talk to and be accepted by both at home and on campus. In this sense, it is easier for dormers to find friends on campus, but get more distances with those back at home, while the opposite is true for commuters. However, if both make an effort to get involved in groups of their interest on campus, and keep in touch with family and friends back home, they can overcome these struggles, although it may be difficult at first due to the big campus size and busy schedules. Once the basic needs are met so far, students must feel a sense of self-worth and achievement. They need to

They are both vital in creating a feeling of community and comfort within the residence halls. Connecting with residents is difficult because an RA has to find a happy medium somewhere between an authority figure and a friend. Availability and communication are important parts to this distinction because the more time residents can spend around and with you, the more they get to know you as a person and the more they understand your duties as an RA. For me personally, I think these responsibilities will fall mostly within my normal day-to-day life. Within the dorms I like to keep my door propped open, which I think would make me much more approachable to residents walking by. I also like to make sure I acknowledge everyone I see around campus, and this would be especially true with the residents in my hall. It always brightens my day a bit whenever someone takes the time out of their day to just say “hello,” and I think that’s true for a lot of

The position of Assistant Resident Director is a challenging, engaging, and rewarding experience. I can see it in each ARD I have worked with. I got into residence life to grow as an individual. Many of the positions offered to student staff serve as catalysts for personal growth. Over the last year and a half of serving as a Resident Advisor, I have come to realize the biggest growth happens when you put the needs of others above your own. In my eyes, a successful ARD will have built an atmosphere where growth can occur and is aware of the wellness of the hall community. The role of ARD is almost limitless in terms of how many lives can be touched.

I want to serve as a Resident Assistant because I value the importance of making a difference in the Saint Mary’s community, as well as serving as a peer leader who builds community and serves as a voice for their residence. Building an inclusive and cohesive community is very important. I want to ensure that the college living experience is a positive one and serve as a positive role model, just as my resident assistant has. Building healthy relationships with your residence, hall director, and fellow residence staff is very important. It is important to show others that you are approachable and a person who can deal and trust with during diverse situations. I will exemplify the Lasallian Core Traditions, by demonstrating a sense of belongingness

I would want them to feel at home, and make the resident hall a home to its residents. In a home, all voices are heard, all opinions valued so I would create a suggestion box to get feedback from the residents, I would also hold weekly meetings and hang out since, a family that eats together stays together. There will also be movie nights and laundry days, so that a regular day activity can be enjoyable activity that would facilitate and help build a community, friendship, networking and

I want to know who my residents are and know how they are doing. I want to be am available resource they can contact when they need help. I plan to use a suggestion box where residents can let me know things they want me to work on in terms of programming and community outreach. Additionally, I plan to use my first six weeks of the semester to encourage residents to interact with at least one other apartment so that an inclusive community can be formed. Duty and community building are both imperative to creating a home away from home for residents. Being on duty provides an AA the opportunity to see residents and learn more about their community which in turn pays off when the AA holds programs that not only complete their requirements but are valuable to residents, prompting them to come out and build their community with

Coming from a mid-size predominately white institution in a small town in Indiana, I have been fortunate to gain some great experience working with students of all kinds. During my second year at Indiana State University, I found my passion to work heavily with college students; so I immediately got involved with the Office of Residential Life at ISU. It challenged, created room for growth as a professional, and the ability to work students that are different from myself. One thing that challenged me the most is the different perspectives that my first year students brought to my floor community, although it may have not been pleasant one-hundred percent of the time, but it open of doors to build healthy, long-lasting relationship, not only

As a college student, I can attest to the fact that college is nothing like the home I grew up in. Conor Friedersdorf’s “A College Is a Community but Cannot Be a Home” attempts to target college administrators in order to make this misconstrued belief clear. Throughout the article, he makes several strong arguments to explain how students feel in a college setting, and how the current conceptions of what on-campus housing entails are not necessarily accurate. He writes to bring about change in the ideas of college administrators, so they can acknowledge the hardships of the transitions for students rather than trying to make such an environment something it truly “cannot” be. While Friedersdorf appeals to the

College campuses lack in reflecting the environment of the students neighborhoods. There seems to be no relevance in how students are back home versus how they are on college campuses. Although often times students tend to bring along their environment back to school rather than it staying at home. Various student code switch to their audience while some do not. Surroundings influence our physical and mental state in every way possible. However, many students are blinded and conditioned to “act” a certain way in their neighborhoods and either become a completely different person at school or remain the same. This is illustrated in various ways. For example, the way students communicate, and dress are two factors that play a huge role in their

My first realization of the importance of knowing how to interact with different identities was within my creation of the hall sociogram. My hall is uniquely composed of a diverse amount of identities. In my opinion, it is a better representation of diversity than what walking on Clemson’s campus presents. Yet, they all have a longing to serve, as they live in the Civic and Service House living-learning community. When getting to know the residents, I had to learn how to connect with them separately. I couldn’t talk to all of them about the same topic, because they all share different interests and experiences. Moreover, when attempting to establish relationships with them, I realized that some residents were harder to connect with than others.

I'm a Houston native; I grew up minutes away from campus in the East End community, but even with UH so close I never believed I would have the privilege to live on campus. Living on campus ultimately gives me a different perspective of UH. I am able to immerse myself in the culture from the moment I wake up to when the sun rises the next day as I type up an essay in my dorm. I believe that family is everything, but I know by living on campus I'll truly be able to utilize the writing workshops, dorm labs, and be able to have the convenience of being only a few steps away to make the debate team meeting. Being able to not worry about traffic on 45, what time I need to wake up to get a practical parking spot, and feeling unable to join an organization

A student who was studying at a University in China had a annoying problem that many other college students have had to deal with. He had a roommate who was always stealing his food. The student stated that he would buy and cook food, and his roommate would always eat it. He did not even ask if he could eat the food. One day, the student got fed up with it and decided he was going to get his roommate back.

After graduating from Luther College, I spent a year interning in the study abroad and international admissions office and concurrently had my first experience in Residence Life as a small hall manager. After that, I landed my first full-time position in Residence Life at Luther and I am definitely enjoying the experience. I am considering graduate study in the near future, looking at higher education as a potential area of study. I am hoping that presenting and attending the UMR-ACUHO conference will give me some direction or topics to start thinking about further.

American Campus Communities was founded in 1993 by Bill Bayless and four other employees with a vision to be the best student housing in the nation. All of the co founders and 25 senior level employees started their careers as a Resident Assistant. American Campus Communities is headquartered in Austin, TX and has a workforce of 5000 employees nationwide. It’s one of the largest developer & manager of private student housing and a national leader in 3rd Party housing development. It manages around 200 properties and it became so successful that in 2004 it became a publicly traded company. The structure of American campus is really straightforward. They hire within and allow students to work at the communities they are living at. American Campus