magazineM A C U H O

Mid-Atlantic Association of College & University Housing Officers

THE POWER OF POSITIVITY A LOOK BACK AT VALLEY FORGE CONFERENCE 2014

BASKETS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

WINTER 2015

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARTICLES

A Letter From the President

A Look Back at Valley Forge, PA MACUHO Annual 2014 Conference

Our Region’s Best

Baskets as Far as the Eye Could See

The Power of Positivity

Should We Hire Sophmore RAs?

Everything Was Awesome! At the 2014 MACHUHO-SSLI Conference

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CONTRIBUTORS

EDITOR

Deborah Scheibler

Conal Carr

Brooke Clayton

Brian Medina

Olan Garrett

Dr. Sean P. Killion

Licinia “LuLu” Barrueco Kaliher

John Verdi

Brandy Garlic

Dana A. Severance

Jessica Innacone

Catherine Kellman

Christina Moran

Executive Board

Brooke Zygmund

Brian Medina

Crystal Lopez

Olan Garrett

Laura Barry

Conal Carr

Jacklyn Gentile

Dillon Eppenstein

Debbie Scheibler

Sarah Yencha

Josh Bellice

Siobhan Skerritt

Sean McNalley

Steven Couras

Christina Moran

Dianne Villar

Anthony Florendo

Jay Tifone

Latoya Haynes

Rhett Burden

Tricia Walmsley

Michawl Mullin

Elizabeth Ali

Ashley Shaw

Jovin Fernandez

Michawl Siesner

Brandon Smith

Tiffany Hughes

Tracey Eggleston

Jess Oswald

Jim Clagg

Nicholas Cramiccioni

Sarah Martin

David Cluman

Chad Henning

Sean Agnew

Chris Willis

Aly Sehl

Steven Sweat

David Stuebing

Chris Ottey

Joseph Uler

Réka Berényi

Rosemary Radilla

Mike Schoch

Natalie Liston

LaShelle Cross

Laura Tan

Leadership Council

Executive Board

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HELLO MACUHO!I hope this finds you well and reenergized after an

amazing conference in Valley Forge, Pennsylva-

nia! This year’s annual conference was one for the

record books. With 290 attendees, 105 new del-

egates, 47 Chief Housing Officers, and 59 exhib-

itors, the learning, the laughter, and net- working

opportunities were limitless. The host committee

did an outstanding job of “connecting our past to

the present.” My appreciation and admiration for

all the moments that were made will forever be

held near and dear to my heart.

In my presidential address on Novem- ber 6th, I

shared a saying from my past that has become

all too real for my pres- ent position. My father,

a man of very few words, said “do what you love,

and love what you do.” It wasn’t until I became

in- volved with MACUHO that I knew what those

words meant. By saying that, I want to challenge

you to think about how you continue and will

continue to love what you do every day. What you

do matters; but loving what you do matters most.

I, like most of you, never thought “when I grow

up, I want to work in housing and residence life!”

The only reason I am where I am today is because

of people who loved what they did. These men-

tors of mine have pushed, challenged, and paved

the way for me so I, too, can sup- port you. Let me

help you find that small spark that will fuel your

passion and love for the job you do every day.

With the amazing dedication and com- mitment

of the Leadership Council and Executive Board, I

want to invite you to take part in our current en-

deavors of de- veloping a new Strategic Plan, cre-

ating various online professional development

opportunities, expanding our graduate student

experience, and increasing the number of par-

ticipants in the Volunteer Incentive Program for

Students (VIPS).

MACUHO is only as successful as its members. I

am very excited to serve as your President, but

I’m more excited to get you involved. Let’s make

this anoth- er great year for MACUHO, our mem-

bers, and more importantly, our students!

A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENTBrooke Clayton

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Where could you only be a few yards from a national landmark, be within a few min-utes from world class shopping, ride a bull, and see some of your closest friends? That

would have been the 2014 MACUHO Annual Conference, held at the Valley Forge Resort and Casino November 5-7 in King of Prussia, PA. The Host Committee had a blast prepar-ing for the conference and the team strived for nothing but satisfaction. Eighteen months of planning led up to a high-ly attended, entertaining, and educational conference! We lived up to our theme: “Celebrating Our Independent Spirit: Connecting the Past with the Present’. The Philly-inspired week “twisted” many new ideas and old traditions.

Back for the first time in ten years in the southeastern Penn-sylvania area, the MACUHO 2014 conference showcased some old and new traditions. Our outstanding keynote speaker, Matthew Shupp, a former residence life profession-al and current educator in the field of higher education, re-minded us how to be true to ourselves and to others. His interactive message is one that we can use to energize us through our year. A halls-to-walls tour was held at Villanova University while several professional development sessions were presented. A former tradition of sharing Wednesday night dinner with sponsors, exhibitors, and friends allowed for many to experience the incredible local area. Later that evening, the Committee Expo and Exhibitor Reception brought the conference back together, just in time for a hoot and hollering bull-riding, country dancing evening at Deuces Wild Night Club.

Thursday started with rain, canceling the Fun Run at the historic Valley Forge part but that didn’t dampen our spir-its. Yoga anyone? Thursday saw an amazing program slate, which the Program Committee clearly worked so hard on. We are grateful to all those who presented sessions. The board meeting focused on updates in our association and conducted the annual elections. Congratulations to all of our new Leadership Council and Executive Board Members!

The Exhibitor Recognition Luncheon was a wonderful op-portunity to thank the exhibitors for their dedication to MACUHO. Dessert, along with an International Coffee Bar, was served in the Exhibitor Hall along with a popcorn, made by a very friendly server. The Exhibitor Expo had over 55 ex-hibitors (a new MACUHO record), with seasoned and new companies filling the Independence Ballroom. Thursday night continued with a beautiful reception and dinner in the Waterford Ballroom, recognizing the amazing accom-plishments of our members. The evening concluded with a packed house for Quizzo in the Valley Tavern (we will never look at school mascots the same!)

Friday introduced the Regional Breakfasts, which were very well attended. Thank you to all who were present and re-mained committed to this opportunity to gather as a region with the RC’s. The raffle basket brought in over $4000 with 60 baskets on display- the highest ever!!! The money raised will be split between our own Lisa Pierce VIP Scholarship Fund and St. Baldrick’s Foundation, benefiting those with cancer. A heartfelt thank you for your generosity! Friday’s Closing Luncheon, “The South Philly Twist”, announced the program winners, introduced the 2015 Host, and gave us a chance to say goodbye to our old and new friends over cheesesteaks and Tastykakes.

We were honored and blessed to have worked with an out-standing host committee and executive board and council. All of our plans and expectations were fulfilled and we hope those who came to Valley Forge had an amazing week. We want to thank everyone for the support and encour-agement. We look forward to seeing you all at Penn State in 2015.

A LOOK BACK AT VALLEY FORGE, PA

MACUHO 2014 Annual ConferenceBy Licinia ‘Lulu’ Barrueco Kaliher & Jennifer Thorpe, Host 2014 Conference Co-chairs

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#MACUHORAsROCKNational RA Appreciation Day:

February 18, 2015As a region, let’s all commit to taking this opportunity to recognize all the hard work that our student

staff do to move our departments forward, to enhance the work that we do, and to make our residential student population experience the best it can be!

National RA Appreciation Day is a day to recognize the outstanding efforts and accomplishments of Residence Life student staffs everywhere.

Show us how you will appreciate your RAs and automatically enter to win a prize!Be sure to use the following hashtag on any form of Social Media to enter the drawing: #MACUHORAsRock

The best submission by February 18th, 12 Noon will be our lucky winner!For some ideas visit PINTEREST: RA Appreciation

ONE OF THE MANY WAYS TO RECOGNIZE STUDENT STAFF YEAR ROUND IS ALSO BY NOMINATING THEM FOR OUR REGION’S

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE AWARDSThese awards are offered to all Undergraduate student staff members in our region who have earned a Fall 2014 semes-ter GPA of 3.70 or above.

To participate, simply email rec@macuho.org the names of all qualifying student staff members, the name of your insti-tution, and one address per institution where the awards can be sent.  Please use this template: Awards template

Please also indicate any student staff members who have earned a Fall 2014 semester GPA of 4.0 for special recogni-tion. The deadline for submissions is TBA. Awards will be sent to your institution by early April.

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BASKETS as Far as the Eye Could SeeDebbie Scheibler, Rutgers University-Camden

If you attended the 2014 Annual Conference in Valley Forge, you saw tables overflowing with fabulous baskets that ranged from school spirit goodies to high-end gourmet delicacies. While no one knows for sure, it appeared to be a record-year with over 60 baskets being donated from our members as well as a few conference exhibitors. I wanted to sit down with the Basket Raffle Chairs from Host 2014, John Verdi of Gwynedd Mercy University and Karen Kostenly of Temple University, to find out how this year stacked up and what our membership needs to know in order to best support the Basket Raffle Charity in the future.

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DS: What is the history and purpose surrounding the Basket Raffle at the MACUHO Annual Conference?

JV: The purpose of the Basket Raffle Charity through MACUHO is to give back to local or national recog-nized organizations as part of philanthropic outreach.

 DS: Talk to us about how and why the St. Baldrick’s

Foundation was selected as this year’s philanthro-py for the 2014 Annual Conference Basket Raffle.

JV: St. Baldrick’s Foundation was selected based on col-lecting responses from member of the HOST com-mittee. There are a number institutions in our region that work with St. Baldrick’s Foundation, so this was a means to continue the support and give to an or-ganization that is devoted to helping children with cancer. John may be a bit biased on the selection of the foundation, as he is a childhood cancer survivor.

 DS: What was the final amount raised for this year’s

basket raffle and why do you think so much was raised this year?

JV: This year, MACUHO raised a total of $4,163.00 through the Basket Raffle Charity. It is important to know that half of the amount raised will go to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation while the other half will be set aside to assist in the Lisa A. Pierce Volunteer Incentive Pro-gram for Students (VIPS). We want to believe that our good looks and charm attributed to raising so much, but we know in our hearts it was due to the gener-osity of our members! However, we think everyone wanted to have a chance in grabbing baskets away from Shigeo!

 DS: At the Annual Conference, we kept hearing a ru-

mor about someone special doing something if the $3,000 mark for raffle purchases was met. Since that mark was surpassed, whatever hap-pened with this?

JV: We did have one volunteer, MACUHO Treasurer Olan Garrett, who indicated that he was willing to have his head shaved if we reached the $3,000 mark! Unfor-tunately, we could not find a time/place to hold this event. However, as soon as Olan returned home, he did have his head shaved! We almost had a past-pres-ident, to remain unnamed, volunteer who was going to shave her head if we raised $5,000….

 DS: Is there anything else you want to add about serv-

ing on the 2014 Host Committee or wish to say to the membership?

JV: Both Karen and I had a wonderful time serving on the HOST committee and would like to thank all members of the HOST committee and volunteers who helped in any way to support the Basket Raf-fle charity. We could not have such as successful program without everyone’s support! We would just urge all members of the association to get involved in any way they could to support the wonderful associ-ation that is MACUHO!

Supporting the Basket Raffle Charity at the Annual Conference is just one way to support our regional endeavors. Support-ing the ACUHO-I Foundation, giving your time and energy via your involvement in a committee (REC, R&R, Program, Housing Opps, PPD or Diversity) or on Leadership Council, jumping in on a free MACUHO Webinar or reading one of our various blogs or Facebook posts help connect you to our association the whole year long. Find ways to live that MACUHO Mag-ic beyond the Annual Conference! If you haven’t supported the Basket Raffle in the past, consider doing so in 2015 when we return to Happy Valley as MACUHO heads to Penn State. See you in 2015.

Debbie Scheibler (DS)John Verdi (JV)

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The MACUHO-REC committee would like to congratulate:

Rebecca Spencer-Strong Of Towson University

Andrew Mason Of Stevens Institute of Technology

Katie Dickson Of University of the Sciences

as they are the winners of this year’s Our Regions Best (ORB) RA Awards. These winners

were announced and awarded at the MACUHO-SSLI 2014 Conference at Bucknell University.

2014 – 2015 Our Region’s Best RECIPIENTS

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CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR 2014-2015 NOMINEES:

Kailey Tindle, Bucknell University Jasmine King, Bucknell University

Mamadou Balde, Dickinson College Jessica Leidy, Elizabethtown College

Trey Mathews , Juniata College Gabrielle Bosshard, Keystone College

Asal Salah, Ramapo College Office of Residence Life Carl Archut Jr., Richard Stockton College of NJ

Josh Velazquez, Rutgers University-Newark Nada Abdelaziz, Rutgers University-Newark

Alex Wehrenberg, Salisbury University Andrew Mason, Stevens Institute of Technology (award recipient)

Derek Douglas, Towson University Rebecca Spencer-Strong, Towson University (award recipient)

Erin Edwards, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Sierra Ragsdale-Miller, University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Katie Dickson, University of the Sciences (award recipient)

2014 – 2015 Our Region’s Best Nominees List:

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Brandy Garlic, Resident Director at the University Village Apartments

Institution: Delaware State University

This may seem like mere words to you, but it has be-come a movement on Delaware State University’s campus specifically in the Department of Housing and Residential Education. While planning for fall training this year, I brainstormed a great deal trying to find a theme. Just like most of my “great ideas,” it came to me at 2 a.m. while trying to fall asleep. Pos-itivity!

During my welcome and expectations session, I told the RAs, “I do not do well with negativity because I am a positive person. So, if you are having a bad day, and I encounter you, I will sprinkle you with positivi-ty. Smiles are contagious and so is a positive attitude and aura.” To support my thinking and my way of liv-ing I showed a TED Talk, “The Happy Secret to Better Work” by Shawn Achor. Shawn’s talk is about positive psychology. He challenges listeners to not allow their external world to determine their happiness. “If you raise someone’s level of positivity in the pres-ent then their brain experiences what we call a happi-

ness advantage,” says Achor. He does a fantastic job of exuding the positivity and energy he discusses in his talk. The feedback from the RAs after hearing this was filled with positivity.

Because of this new way of approaching training, this positive movement, you could see the difference in the way the RAs bonded with their staffs, the way they learned new policies and procedures, and the way they accepted the challenges of training. This may sound like something small, not anything new to professionals or even Chief Housing Officers, but it is something that we as humans sometimes take for granted. Reintroducing positivity to the RAs during training produced powerful results and provided an amazing atmosphere. Anytime they are faced with adversity in life or in the job I challenge them to “sprin-kle it with positivity”. I tell them that I don’t care if it’s a salt shaker filled with positivity or a bucket. Sprinkle it with positivity because your attitude in just about any situation can determine the outcome.

The Power of Positivity

Let’s be honest. Working in housing and residential education is a lot of work! There is so much emphasis on customer service, office hours, on call, late nights, policies and procedures that sometimes we forget the bare essentials that we need to get the meat of the job done. I am a firm believer (and I preach this to my students and staff) that, “your attitude deter-mines the outcome.” If you approach the Resident Assistant position and a career in general with a neg-ative attitude, then you will have negative results. If you approach an irate student with negativity, you had better believe that you will get negative results. There truly is power in positivity.

- Previously published in January 2014

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KEEP

CALM AND

SPRINKLE

POSITIVITY

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1. Send an E-card 2. Written Personalized note

3. Post inspirational messages around your staff office

4. Post flyers around the buildings with sayings like “Have you thanked/high

fived/hugged/said hi/etc to your RA today?” 5. Make a Facebook Event

6. Write an individual Facebook wall post for each staff member

7. Write a Facebook note that you tag everyone in (25 things I love about working…)

8. Put a Facebook album together of staff memories and include captions/inside jokes

9. Email residents letting them know it is RA Appreciation Day

10. Ask them to make a poster, a sign, or a card for the RA and put it on the RAs door

11. Put a poster board with a staff picture in the lobby and let students write notes; share

these at staff meeting 12. Video Thank Yous: where students and staff

can show their appreciation of RAs 13. Write a poem about your staff, or story, or

song, to share 14. Singing Telegram (phone message) to all

RA's from the professional staff 15. Webpage

16. Letter from the President , VP, or Dean 17. Launch a Residence Life Meet the Staff

Page featuring RAs and pictures 18. Dinner with the Department Head

19. Free Food from local vendors 20. Face in Hole figures for photo opportunities

21. Homemade Dept. Game/ Trivia 22. Decorate your RA’s doors overnight

1. Gift each RA their favorite candy or snack

2. Make a bulletin board- in your office or near the dining hall or entrance to a

building where everyone can see it- of your RA’s. Put up a picture and some fun facts, or reasons you appreciate them, and let the whole campus know

about RA Appreciation Day! 3. ad in your school newspaper

4. Make RA mailboxes (like grade-school Valentine mailboxes) for each staff member and leave those, paper, and

pens out for residents to write appreciations or shout-outs. Put some

candy in with them and give them to the RAs on appreciation day. 5. Door decorations

6. Thank you Scrapbook: have people from other departments write thank yous and

make mini scrapbooks 7. Talk to your Food Services about doing

something special in the Caf for that day

8. Treat during staff meeting 9. Gifts from provided by other offices

10. Game & Raffle Event

1. Throw a dessert reception 2. Winter Theme: Make your RA’s a snow

cone or have snowcaps candy! Decorate with snowflakes.

3. Invite the staff over for a home-cooked meal or host a staff potluck

4. Room Service- Surprise your staff with a small meal or snack delivered to their

room by you. 5. Home baked goodies

6. Frame or scrapbook a favorite quote or motivational story

7. Create gifts that are encouraging or highlight your staff’s strengths:

a. Packet of Seeds- Thanks for nurturing your community and helping residents

grow! b. Gold chocolate coins - You are worth your

weight in gold! c. Andes mints/peppermint patties - Your service is worth a mint to us! OR Thanks

for your commitMINT! OR You are a breath of fresh air to our office!

d. Smartie - To remind you of the expertise you share with others!

e. Life Saver - Thanks for being a real life saver!

8. Starburst - You're a star! 9. RA Survival Kit

10. College Logo Gifts

RA APPRECIATION DAY

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MAKE THEIR DAY!!!Look for tips on what you can do to show appreciation and recognition for your RAs on the MACUHO website,

MACUHO Facebook, and in this issue of the MACUHO Magazine.

RA APPRECIATION DAYWednesday,

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SHOULD WE HIRE SOPHOMORE RAS?by Dana A. Severance, Frostburg State University

Student Affairs profession-als acknowledge that RAs are the bedrock upon which residential student services

stand. Since many of us have served as RAs ourselves, looking back on our own experiences we often note that the RA job grows more demanding each year. At the same time, and possibly as a result, many residence life programs find it hard to get ad-vanced, upper class students to apply for the job. As Paige Crandall, Dean of Students at the University of Florida, put it, “the position may now appear unattractive to potential candidates because they have a perception that

there are too many demands and re-sponsibilities with this position (Cran-dall, 2004, p.93). Students today enter college with a growing number of per-sonal and emotional challenges, and the job of Resident Assistant has be-come progressively more stressful as a result (Brandt Brecheisen, 2014). Supervisors want to hire RAs who are most likely to be able to handle the job. Many are reluctant to select students who have not yet made all the neces-sary developmental transitions them-selves. However, we are progressively compelled to hire first-year applicants due to shrinking numbers of more ex-perienced candidates (Schaller & Wag-

ner, 2007). Students may interview for the job after only one semester of col-lege experience, making us skeptical about their potential effectiveness.

The hiring of first-year students to serve as RAs in their sophomore year is not yet a validated practice from a research standpoint. The literature provides no direct guidance regarding the efficacy of second-year students in the RA role as compared to juniors or seniors. So is it in the best interest of first-year students to be hired as RAs for their sophomore years? If so, should we be training them any dif-ferently or providing additional sup-port and resources? Most importantly, the question remains: do sophomores perform in the position as well as oth-er first-time RAs?

What we know about sopho-mores compared to first-year students, sophomores are un-derstudied, even though they have the strongest needs among upper class students (Gahagan & Hunter, 2006). Research shows that sophomores spend more time in social activities and are less likely to be involved in their own learn-ing than juniors and seniors. On the other hand, a sense of commitment to a major and satisfaction with faculty in-teractions are significant predictors of sophomore academic success. Graun-ke & Woolsey (2005) recommend that institutions invest in programs focused on major and career decision-mak-ing and should increase faculty inter-

S

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action with sophomores to improve students’ chance of success. Others confirm these findings: Sophomores rate a sense of belonging and having approachable faculty as more import-ant than do other students (Gardner, 2000), and sophomores rate the avail-ability and approachability of faculty as significantly more important as well (Juillerat, 2000).

Dr. Molly Schaller, chair of the Col-lege Student Personnel and Higher Education Administration program at University of Dayton, has done con-siderable work exploring the develop-mental lives of second-year students. In 2005, Schaller conducted a qual-itative study of sophomore students and posited four stages of exploration for sophomores: random exploration, focused exploration, tentative choic-es, and commitment. These stages express themselves in three distinct issues that sophomores deal with: how they view themselves, how they address their relationships, and how they view their academic decisions. Schaller found that a fair portion of sophomores in her study lingered in the random exploration stage, which characterizes most first-year students. They were aware that choices they would need to make in their lives were looming, but they went about their lives in ways that allowed them to delay those decisions. Most of the sophomores in her study were in the focused exploration stage of their col-lege lives. They began doubting their current relationships and academic experiences and questioning previous

choices they had made as freshmen, especially related to choosing a major. For Schaller, this represented the tran-sition among second-year students to realizing that they need to be self-di-rected, to come up with their own an-swers, and to leave behind the artificial relationships they had developed with peers. The third stage, tentative choic-es, arises from this new introspection. Students at this stage felt a new lev-el of responsibility and began to feel good about imagining their futures in more specific terms. Finally, Schaller found that few sophomores had pro-ceeded to the commitment stage. Students at this stage were “planning for the future, clear about what they wanted, and unwavering in their sense of responsibility for their own future” (p. 20). Schaller concluded that stu-dents need encouragement to take responsibility for their choices and their learning, to get involved in curric-ular and extra-curricular activities, and to build new relationships with peers based on intentional rather than su-perficial characteristics.

What we know about soph-omore RAs Very little re-search has been conducted that helps us guess who will be most successful in the RA position, though we certainly spend considerable time and resources in our selection processes. Audrey Jaeger and Amy Caison conducted research on what makes for a successful RA, and they

found that, in addition to knowledge, skills and overall intelligence, there is a positive relationship between high-performing RAs and their emo-tional intelligence. Specifically, the RAs in their study with high emotional intelligence scores were 11 times more likely to be identified as outstanding RAs. The authors also identified prob-lem-solving ability and flexibility as sig-nificant predictors of RA performance. Finally, they acknowledge that a rap-idly-changing student body means we must constantly assess what we are looking for in an RA: “What we knew five and ten years ago may no longer be considered the necessary charac-teristics of an effective RA today” (Jae-ger & Caison, 2006, p. 161).

Molly Schaller and Rachel Wagner (2007) sought to understand the ex-perience of sophomore RAs to deter-mine how their appointment impacts their lives and their residents’ lives. Their findings suggest that sophomore RAs may need additional support rel-ative to older RAs. They noted in par-ticular that working with first-year students took a particular toll on the sophomore RAs in their study. They also acknowledged that the demands placed on a sophomore RA in the first six weeks, especially in supporting first-years, can be a serious distraction to the RA in making the transition to their own sophomore year. Another of their findings was that female-identi-fied RAs experienced difficulty meet-ing everyone’s expectations, and that male-identified RAs found the job to be a barrier to developing new rela-

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Brandt Brecheisen, S. M. (2014). The sophomore RA experience: An examination of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and

RA self-efficacy. Retrieved from ProQuest Digital Dissertations. (1530478043)

Crandall, P. D. (2004). Future role of resident assistants in housing programs at public, four-year colleges and universities.

Retrieved from ProQuest Digital Dissertations. (305185108)

Foote, S. M., Hinkle, S. E., Kranzow, J., Pistilli, M. D., Rease Miles, L., & Simmons, J. G. (2013). College students in transition:

An annotated bibliography. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for

The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

Gahagan, J. & Hunter, S. (2006). The second-year experience: Turning attention to the academy’s middle children.

About Campus, 11(3), 17-22.

Graunke, S. A. & Woolsey, S.A. (2005). An exploration of the factors that affect the academic success of college sophomores.

College Student Journal, 39(2), 367-376.

Jaeger, A. & Caison, A. (2006). Rethinking criteria for training and selection: An inquiry into the emotional intelligence of

resident assistants. NASPA Journal, 43(1), 144-165.

Schaller, M.A. (2005). Wandering and wondering: Traversing the uneven terrain of the second college year.

About Campus, 10(3), 17-24.

Schaller, M. A., & Wagner, R. L. (2007). Indecision and an avalanche of expectations: Challenges facing sophomore resident

assistants. NASPA Journal, 44(1), 32-56.

(Continued from Should We Hire Sophmore RAs?)

tionships, especially due to the con-frontational aspects of the job. Though supervisors may be reluctant to en-courage RAs to get involved in other organizations to find new friends, the researchers found that sophomore RAs who became isolated by the job also found themselves challenged in their own sophomore development.

What more do we need to know? The topic of sophomore RAs as a scholarly line of inquiry is certainly fertile ground. Aside from anecdotal evidence and institution-specific prac-tices, there is a lot that we can learn.

Should we be concerned about hiring sophomore RAs, or should we view it as just a thrilling opportunity for them? Are we discriminating unnecessarily if we give priority to upper class appli-cants, or should we let sophomores mature a little more before we put them on the front lines? Does the RA position help or hinder sophomores in their own developmental goals?

As an EdD candidate at Frostburg State University, I will be conducting a study this spring to address the fol-lowing related questions: Do soph-omore RAs perform differently from

other first-time RAs according to their supervisors? Can sophomore class standing predict anything about how an RA will perform in the aspects of the job that their supervisors will use to evaluate them? I hope that the an-swers to these questions will give us all a bit more confidence in deciding whether or not to hire sophomores as RAs when we have the choice. This spring, I will be seeking institutional data on first-time RAs in the MACUHO region, and I invite you to watch for your opportunity to participate in the study and to help find the answers to these practical questions.

BRONZE-SPONSER-

REFERENCES

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BRONZE-SPONSER-

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The 2014 MACUHO-SSLI “Everything is Awesome Conference” was an eye-open-ing experience for not just me, but many others as well. As a second year RA, I was extremely curious to see what the conference would teach me and what new skills, tips, ideas, and tools I could bring back to Stevens. Right off the bat, my attention was caught by this year’s great keynote speaker: Senior Associate Vice President of Student Affairs at NYU & current ACUHO-I President, Dr. Tom Ellet. His aim was not to lecture us about being an RA, but to really try and offer us some helpful advice from the experiences he has acquired working in Stu-dent Affairs for so many years.

Something Dr. Ellet really stressed was the importance of always asking and answering questions, and how we can learn from both. He was also great at get-ting everyone involved in his keynote speech and making it interactive; he had a knack for making the crowd laugh and have fun the entire time. It was really refreshing to see someone who has been working in his field for so many years still have such a passion for what he does. 

Following his address, I was given the chance to pick any educational sessions that I wanted to attend. One of the eye-opening sessions I attended was an Ethics 101 session that was led by two professional staff members from Bucknell University. This particular session really asked us as students and RAs to talk about difficult ethical issues that arise while being an RA. These topics included staff relationships, the use of duty keys, and overall personal issues we may have as RAs. It was interesting to hear the experiences of other RAs from different uni-versities but then also see how we all had the same general foundation as well.

Throughout the conference, there were so many opportunities to network and get to know other RAs from other universities, making this conference experi-ence even more rewarding. I know I speak for many other RAs from all over the mid-Atlantic when I say the 2014 MACUHO-SSLI conference was truly one of the best!

I would definitely want to attend again next year and would really suggest other RAs to attend as well. Thanks MACUHO and Bucknell for a great conference!

Jessica IannaconeDavis Hall - Resident Assistant Stevens Institute of Technology

EVERYTHING WAS AWESOME!

AT THE 2014 MACUHO-SSLI CONFERENCE

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Are you an employer looking to fill a critical staff vacancy?

Perhaps you’re a candidate looking to land a phenomenal Residence Life position for the coming academic year?

If either of these situations pertains to you, then we’ll look to welcome you to the Mid-Atlantic Placement Conference (MAPC) in March 2015.

For the past nineteen years housing professionals in the Mid-Atlantic region have taken

advantage of one of the most accessible and cost-effective recruiting and job placement opportunities. This year will be no different!!

For the fourth year in a row MAPC will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Reading

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welcome of MACUHO’s MAPC volunteers, hosts of the event, who will help you with all of your conference needs. You’ll meet a great number of employers seeking to find the right candidate to join their Res Life teams. You’ll find many qualified and talented candidates

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March 12 & 13, 2015 Crowne Plaza Hotel

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Resident Assistants Resident assistants are the ones that take care of the business.

They are the Judge Judys, Dr. Phils, Oprahs and Jerry Springers of the

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They have to deal with the Young and Restless residents all the days of their lives.

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