At
Feb. 15,
tired. Up since the early morning, she had spent that day attending classes,
planning events for the upcoming week, gathering residents in her house to play
intramural dodgeball games against rival houses, running the long weekly house
meetings with her advising partner and completing her homework assignments and
projects, all while studying for midterms.
The clock made her anxious. Six more minutes and she would
be done for the night, able to drift into sleep before repeating her daily
routine all over again. But, unfortunately for Fogleman, the shrill ringing of
her landline phone brought her back to reality. It was a freshman, locked out
of her room. After taking down the resident’s information, Fogleman grabbed the
master key ring and headed out the door into the chilly night.
“Lock outs are my main responsibility when I’m on duty,”
Fogleman said. “Residents never seem to remember their keys.”
As a
house adviser, Fogleman joins approximately 138 undergraduate resident advisers
who make up much of the residential life staff from each of UCSD’s six
colleges. Each RA is responsible for anywhere from 40 to more than 90 first-
and second-year student residents who live in on-campus apartment and
residential buildings.
RAs provide students with a developed sense of community by
organizing social, recreational and cultural activities throughout the year.
Their job is to work with their residents to facilitate open communication
between roommates, suitemates or apartment mates, and enforce residential life
policies and regulations. They are required to work more than 12 active hours a
week and plan more than a dozen events throughout the year in addition to
participating in all collegewide events.
But there’s more to RAs than meets the eye, said Karlyn
Nieland, a
senior and second-year RA.
“Each RA is very
different, but we were residents at one time too, and we can relate to a lot of
the problems that our first- and second-year students are facing now,” Nieland said.
Although RAs try to encourage a lively social atmosphere for
their residents, according to Fogleman, fighting student apathy is one of the
biggest problems they face daily.
“It’s really frustrating when students tell you they are
interested in attending an event you’ve spent some time planning, but when it
comes down to it some students would rather be doing something else,” she said.
“I feel bad though — we are spending their money on these events that most
people don’t even go to.”
Nieland agrees, but said that experienced RAs know that the
success of an event depends upon quality of the experience, not the quantity of
students who attend.
“Some of the newer RAs are sad if they only had 10 people
show up to an event out of 80, but all the old RAs are like, ‘You had 10 people
come? That’s awesome! And they stayed the whole time? That’s great,’” Nieland
said. “It’s not possible for you to get everyone super excited about one event,
with so many interests. But if only 10 people come and they enjoy it, then it’s
worth it.”
Fogleman said a major challenge is keeping track of time,
because although she might have every aspect of her day scheduled, there are
always a few surprises that can upset her methodical system.
“At the beginning of this quarter, quite a few [of my]
residents got sick. Even though I had a midterm the very next morning, I was
responsible for their health and safety. I drove them to he hospital and stayed
the entire time they needed me,” she said. “It’s tough to balance everything,
especially when this job really can be
24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week because you’re always potentially on call.”
Fogleman considers her strong bond with her residents to be
a perk, but admits that there are times when she is forced to drop her friendly
demeanor when handling disciplinary issues, which can cause the biggest rift
between RAs and their residents.
“Discipline is such a hard thing,” she said. “You want to be
friends with everyone, but no one wants to be friends with the person who gets
them in trouble. But that’s our job, that’s why we attend weekly three-hour
long meetings, that’s why we know how to enforce these rules. It makes me
cringe every time I have to do it, but I also think that students know when
they are breaking the rules, and [in] doing so knowingly, they are
disrespecting me.”
RAs face problems ranging from alcohol and drug possession
to noise complaints to student quarrels to even theft. Amanda Issa, Eleanor
Roosevelt College senior and first-time RA, said that she and the rest of the
ERC staff generally write students up twice or more per week. Issa added that
running into residents off campus presents a tricky situation.
“Some RAs might want to go to a party but they have to be
careful because they don’t know who they are going to run into,” she said.
“What goes on off campus we have no jurisdiction over. “But really, no one is
going to respect you if they saw you dancing on a table drunk the night
before.”
With such demanding responsibilities, RAs enjoy free housing,
free meal points and an additional $1,200 stipend on their TritonPlus account
for extra expenses both on and off campus. RAs in the apartment complexes may
also choose to live with one friend from any college of any year who does not
have guaranteed housing.
Most RAs agree that their roles in residential life
have enhanced their college experience,
since that they did not miss out on anything.
“I have my whole life to live in my own house,” Fogleman
said. “But as a residential adviser I hold a special place at the university
and I make connections with both residents and other advisers that I normally
wouldn’t have made. It’s great knowing that I get to have at least 86 new
friends each year on Facebook.”
