Current and former resident assistants (RAs) say Doane's Residence Life department is unprofessional, disorganized and too demanding of student RAs.
Since the start of fall semester, five RAs have resigned for personal reasons: sophomore Tyler Ohlman and juniors Justin Sons, Cassie Fetters, Greg Spangler and Carolyn Novak. With the loss of seven RAs for the semester, the current staff of nine has six buildings and about 800 students, or 80 percent of campus, to monitor while on duty.
Three-year RA, Sarah Hall, a 2009 alumna, she said the system was unprofessional.
“One of the problems was that we were expected to pick up the slack,” Hall said, “but they abused the system. A clause in the contract said ‘and other applicable duties.’ That turned into anything they could think of…it was just a lack of organization and power abused. They forgot to put the students first.”
Kevin Bollinger, Residence Life Director, said people resigned for a variety of reasons.
“It’s a lifestyle change,” Bollinger said. “On or off the clock, they’re always going to be viewed like that (an RA), and it can be difficult.”
Following the five resignations, two RAs, juniors Trever Reeh and Shari Cumberbatch, were fired Friday, making them the sixth and seventh RAs to vacate the position this year. The vacancy leaves Hansen Hall as the only fully staffed residence hall on campus.
Bollinger said disciplinary action was handled on a case-by-case basis, but the protocol was the same. RAs receive a verbal warning, a written warning, probation and then would be terminated. He said RAs may be on probation for a short period and then return to their job, but all cases were judged on the intent of the action, not just the action itself.
Reeh and Cumberbatch were let go from their RA spots in Smith and Sheldon Halls, leaving Smith with two RAs and Sheldon with one.
ResLife had 16 RAs at the beginning of last year and ended with 14. This year, the staff had 15 and was down to nine.
The staff also had to replace all five Resident Director positions over the summer.
Spangler said the job was too much even though he still missed it.
“You’re either an RA or your everything else, and it’s really like that,” Spangler said. “It almost seems like the RA has to come first. If you’re an RA, it has to be your first priority -- even though they say school and you come first -- when it comes down to it, they want the RA position to come first.”
ResLife conducted interviews on Friday to fill the RA positions. Bollinger said ResLife had 20 applicants, but a significant number of them were freshmen.
And with only one semester of experience, it had some people worried.
“Hardly any upperclassmen are applying to be RAs,” an anonymous source said. “What we’re going to see next semester is a lot of freshmen RAs who don’t know how to do (the job).”
Bollinger said he was looking at the individual, not the year of the student. He said if a person was right for the job, he would hire them but he was going to make sure it was the right person, not just a warm body.
RAs receive a free private room, a monthly stipend and ResLife attire in addition to the camaraderie that comes with the job, Bollinger said.
Still, with all the perks, the staff remained short.
Already three RAs are on duty each night, when a full staff would mean five. Smith has two RAs and Frees and Sheldon have one each, meaning some nights the buildings have no RA on duty.
Bollinger said the RAs weren’t being utilized as they should have been.
“When we had one person in every building, every night, it wasn’t needed,” Bollinger said. “There’s a good chance that will go back up after semester, but…I don’t like to make quick decisions.”
Since Bollinger’s arrival in the fall of 2008, he said he’s focused on transitioning the RA position toward catering to students as Doane now has a Safety Office to handle other student concerns.
While Spangler said he thought the administration was on its way to making the transition, the RA’s job description was still unclear.
“It’s so confusing because the administration didn’t know what our jobs entailed, and we didn’t exactly know what our jobs entailed,” Spangler said.
Doane’s campus had an increase of about 70 students from last fall, but with fewer RAs employed, Bollinger said he was looking into the budget to see if more than 15 RAs could be used next semester.
Until then, the RA staff will have to deal with what it has.
Yet, as Hall said, the message has been sent.
“Obviously it’s a problem in the system – when you can’t hire a full staff at the beginning of the year and at semester you’ve lost almost half,” Hall said, “that should send a message – especially to those who can make a change – because it’s a problem.”
Be the first to comment on this article!