The Fall 2021 semester has just ended, and I had a fantastic time as an MBA graduate student and as a Senior Resident Advisor (SRA) in Housing and Residence Life. It has been another extraordinary semester at my beloved home Lynn University between a new exciting academic program, a new on-campus job, and new acquaintances. After the previous successful but challenging undergraduate senior year in the midst of a world pandemic, living the college experience as everyone knows it again was definitely refreshing and exciting.
Let’s dive into my experience as a Senior Resident Advisor (SRA)!?
First of all, who is a Senior Resident Advisor (SRA)? An SRA is still a Resident Advisor (RA) supervising a group of on-campus students. Still, they are also in charge of a residence hall by developing a sense of community in the building, managing RAs, participating in a secondary-level on-call duty rotation, and performing administrative tasks in the department’s office. On top of enhancing skills an RA acquires, the SRA can also develop strong leadership & mentoring skills.?
My experience as an SRA has been fantastic so far; it enabled me to keep growing and maturing. I will explain it more in-depth by analyzing and reflecting on my performance, focusing on the role responsibilities: Community Engagement & Development, Duty, Mentorship, Personal & Professional Development, and Administration. This article (Part I) will be dedicated to?Community Engagement & Development, while Part II will focus on the remaining four aspects.?
Building a family within the on-campus community was one of the main reasons I applied to work in housing. I also believe it is one of the best parts of the job as creating a friendly environment with the individuals you work with & supervise helps you enjoy the job. In Residential Life, you live with other people in the same building, and creating a community is also important for your personal life as residents and other RAs are your friends! This year as an SRA, I have the opportunity to build three different communities:?
- Residents & Floor:?this was the most challenging one, and in what I am looking to improve next semester. Last year I had an almost perfect community with lacrosse and soccer athletes with whom I built long-lasting friendships and spent a lot of time; it was just marvelous, and I have many great memories. The building I supervise, the Trinity Residence Hall (also known as T-Town), is perfect for first-year students who live in double rooms close to each other in a hallway and share a communal bathroom. Because of the layout, it is very easy to meet and get to know people; every resident knows every person on the floor. However, this first semester I also saw the downside of the dorm’s layout: since it is so easy to get to know each other if you live close to a resident that you do not get along well, that can affect the entire floor community. That is what happened during the semester: my floor includes a diverse group of residents with different personalities that unfortunately did not click with each other. I had to deal with many issues, from multiple noise complaints and reports to policies broken and extra meetings. It was definitely tough mentally, as I had a tough time building the community I was hoping to create after the fantastic one from the previous year. Nonetheless, as Latin philosopher Seneca stated, it is through adversity that a man proves himself. Challenges helped me grow as an individual, and thanks to my outstanding supervisor and the professional staff, I learned a lot.?
- RAs (T-Town Team):?in my first year in Residence, I had a fantastic experience with residents and a not-so-great one with the staff because of the pandemic and fewer opportunities to connect between staff members. On the contrary this year, as an SRA, I struggled with residents, but I got along super well with my team. All of the four RAs in Trinity are friendly & outgoing people and very committed to the job by going above and beyond, ensuring they get all their tasks complete. They stay on top of everything from duty rotation and administrative tasks to engagement with residents and event programming. Our residence hall won the certificate for being the dorm with more event attendees and interactions / 1:1s with residents. I had a lot of fun living with them. I had the opportunity to get to know their personality and how they work by engaging in 1:1 meetings, asking deep questions, changing locations, and developing activities. I plan to improve on the individual meetings with new ideas in the new year. My supervisor influenced me a lot by brainstorming ideas for 1:1s. The RAs also became great friends I see every day and often hang out: it is nice to have more personal relationships with other staff members community-wise.??
- The building (Trinity Residence Hall / T-Town):?creating a positive environment within the building is another stimulating goal of my new role. The population at Lynn University is not big, and so are the residence halls: Trinity has around 130 residents, and it is very easy to get to know each other. My team and I tried to create a T-Town family through engaging events such as Olympic Games, S’mores, and Cards Exchanges. Also, every week I was the SRA on-call, I organized different events as part of the T-Town Event Series with the help of the RAs. Programs included Pasta Duty, Nutella Duty, Movie Nights, Pizza, Mock-tails, and Card Nights. We also planned a Special Holiday edition for the last week of school with hot cocoa, Christmas cards, and movies. It was a lot of fun, and the events helped get residents and RAs more connected.
