You've Come a Long Way, RA

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton, News Anchor Katie Couric, Football Legend Mike Dikta, Actors Wesley Snipes, Danny Glover and even Adam Sandler all have one thing in common. They were all resident assistants (RAs) on their college campuses. (Yes, “Billy Madison” himself was in charge of keeping order in a residence hall full of his peers.)

The role of RA, defined as a “trained peer leader who coordinates activities in residence halls in colleges and universities,” has changed over the years on campuses, including Frostburg State University.

According to University records and the FSU centennial history book, the first step to change was in the late 1960s when “in a sweeping concession to the growing trend toward student autonomy, housemothers were removed by the residence halls beginning in 1967 [and] all on-site oversight of residence hall policies and programs would be provided by a staff of undergraduate resident assistants.”

Flashforward to the 2020s where current student trends and needs are redefining the role of on-campus RAs, once again.

Dr. Katie (Dignan) Weir ’14/D ’23, FSU’s associate director of Residence Life for Residential Education, admitted that the role of R.A. has even changed dramatically from her days at FSU when she was an RA in Frost Hall. Back then, focus was more on hall programs (or “links” as they are now called) to engage, entertain and educate students. Who doesn’t remember movie nights, pizza nights and the occasional campus guest speaker with info on study habits, the dangers of binge drinking and safer sex practices? But, as Weir noted, as students changed, so did their programming needs.

“More effort is now placed on building relationships and support,” she said. “The trend is focusing on the mental health needs of students.” 

Currently at FSU, RAs are encouraged to have “intentional conversations” with each of their residents. These once-a-month chats, described as a “well-being check,” can range in topics from challenges with classes to battles with homesickness to relationship issues or just casual conversations.

Personal interactions are important, noted Weir, as students are now opting to remain in their rooms since the COVID pandemic (when students were discouraged from gathering). It has been a challenge to retrain students on the importance of community, so RAs are continually searching for new ways “to engage these students, once again,” Weir said.

In the late '80s and early '90s, the trend was to create theme halls to build a community of students with similar interests such as service, leadership and physical/social activities. But those have also been disbanded in recent years, due to the pandemic and lack of interest. But Weir was hopeful a new era of theme halls will re-emerge.

“We are now trying to figure out what these themes will be,” she said.

A New Kind of College Student

Maneuvering roommate conflicts, unlocking locked doors, keeping quiet during quiet hours, maintaining the hall rules – are traditional RA responsibilities. However, since many of the rooms are now singles on the FSU campus, Weir said the traditional roommate conflicts aren’t that common.

“Once in a while we’ll get a complaint about someone eating someone’s peanut butter,” she said.

For Zaid Jaffery ’24, a senior RA finishing up his last semester in FSU’s Westminster Hall, his days were still filled with lock outs and handling noise violations. But most of his time was spent getting to know those on his floor.

“I really try to interact with my residents,” said Jaffery, a transfer student from Waynesboro, Pa. He noted that all RAs are trained to detect “red flags” in behavior. In those instances, Jaffery and others are quick to make referrals to the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services office.

“When it comes to mental health issues, we really put CAPS into play,” he said. “It’s better to be safer than sorry."

Even with the intentional conversations, Jaffery noted that some residents are still unreachable. “Sometimes I hear residents in their room, and they don’t come to the door when I knock.”  Luckily, Jaffery didn’t take it personally. “But that’s fine.”

Uphill in Allen Hall, RA Lindsay Aldridge personally handled a hall full of upperclassmen, even though she was only a sophomore. “Most of my residents are older than me,” she said.

Like Jaffery, some residents dodge Aldridge. Others immediately sense doom when she comes knocking. “If I knock on their door for an intentional conversation, the first thing they ask is, ‘Am I in trouble?’”

Both Aldridge and Jaffery admitted to feeling the pressure of coming up with new and innovative “links” to engage their students. Jaffery’s most-successful programs were a Mario Kart tournament and a “Zombie v. Humans” event, in which he collaborated with other resident assistants and directors. The apocalyptic event attracted more than 100 participants campuswide.

Meanwhile in the Upper Quad, with mostly upperclassmen in her hall, Aldridge arranged a resume-writing program. However, only two residents showed up.

“People want to stay in their rooms on their phones. So, it can be a challenge,” she said.

The “alone-on-their-phone” mentality is not exclusive to Frostburg. Sean Pierce ’95/M’97 serves as the interim assistant vice president for Student Affairs at Queens College in New York. He said that he has seen a significant change in student behavior post-COVID.

“We have students coming to us who had little-to-no in-person school experiences in high school due to being remote for two or three years,” said Pierce, who worked as an RA in Cambridge and Frost halls during his years at FSU. “These formulative years being spent in front of a computer screen and not in a classroom have created a shift in how students interact with one another, or in some cases, do not.”

Pierce has spent “a chunk of his career” helping his students resolve conflicts and learn how to “agree to disagree.” These are skills he learned during his time as an RA at FSU. “Not only did we learn more about interpersonal dynamics and communication, but we also learned to diffuse situations, how to win people over, how to negotiate and mediate between differing parties and how to think quickly on our feet to respond to any crisis that arose.”

When it comes to his most-memorable incident at FSU, Pierce chose to plead the fifth “to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent.” But he was quick to offer up his favorite hall program that occurred during a sub-zero January Intersession in 1994.

“It was minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and I made it out to get pizza from Little Caesars for my residents, and we had a movie marathon because classes were cancelled, and we couldn’t do much else. After all, the internet didn’t exist then, so we had to use VHS tapes in the lounge VCR.” 

(No word if it was an Adam Sandler movie.)

Designate Residence Life Development Fund or Residence Life Endowment to support FSU’s Residence Life Programs at www.frostburg.edu/makeagift.          

Once an RA, Always an RA

Like Pierce, both Jaffery and Aldridge agreed that their RA jobs have given them skillsets that they will take into the next chapters of their lives. Aldridge, a nursing major, said she has learned a mix of people skills and time management. “You’re on duty 12 hours so you have to make the most of your time,” the future nurse said. “You also learn how to connect with people.”

Jaffery, who graduated with a Secure Computing and Information Assurance degree this past May, said he hacked into some personal abilities he didn’t know he possessed. “When I came into this RA role, I wasn’t assertive, and I didn’t consider myself a leader. It’s really a muscle you develop,” he said. “Knowing you’re making a resident feel safe, you have a greater responsibility to take care of people.”

Taking care of their communities – not a bad skill to possess.

“It will always be about community,” Weir added. “Creating safe and inclusive communities is at the core of what we do.”