Though each year the Department of Housing and Residence Life hires new RAs for the spring semester, the number of mid-year resident assistant hires has decreased over the past few years.
At the start of the spring semester, some Ohio University underclassmen living in the dorms may struggle to bond with new resident assistants hired halfway through the year.
Though each year the Department of Housing and Residence Life hires new RAs for the spring semester, the number of mid-year hires has recently dropped.
As of Nov. 24, eight new RAs will start working for the department of Housing and Residence Life in the 2016 spring semester. Last academic year, eight RAs were also hired halfway through the year, which is a drop from 2013-14, when 28 RAs were hired at that time, Executive Director of Housing and Residence Life Pete Trentacoste said in an email.
Two of the new hires will be in the Read-Johnson Scholars' Complex on East Green.
“It is different starting mid-year for RAs,” Jeremy Miller, the residential director for the Read-Johnson Scholars' Complex, said in an email. “Thankfully, Residence Life recognizes this difference, and supplements those differences with extra support and guidance in their training and positions.”
One of the RAs who is leaving the complex accepted another position within Housing and Residence Life as an assistant residential director at another dorm and another RA will be leaving due to an internship, Miller said.
“While we are always in a bittersweet place to see student staff leave their positions, it is also exciting to be seeing new team members come into these spaces,” Miller said. “But when it comes to mid-year hiring for resident assistants, there is always an unease at first.”
The transition halfway through the year can be difficult for the residents and the new resident assistant, Sarah-Catherine Showalter, a junior studying nursing, said. She began as a resident assistant in Ryors Hall halfway through the 2014-2015 academic year.
“I came in and the hall community had already been developed,” Showalter said. “It was hard for the residents to lose their previous resident assistant and that may have made it a little bit more difficult for me to connect to them.”
Showalter had not expected to get the position so soon, and while it was nice to have the financial burden of housing lifted off her family, it was challenging to adjust to the change in scenery, she said.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="d9ce92c6-9a2c-11e5-8296-737a37aaa857"}}
“It was really sad for me,” Showalter said. “I was so excited to be an RA. I wanted to help people out and be involved in people’s lives, but they had already made that bond with someone else.”
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="d9ce92c6-9a2c-11e5-8296-737a37aaa857"}}
However, Showalter said RAs who are hired halfway through the year should not be discouraged by the difficulty to connect with their residents.
“If I could go back and do things differently, I would have made more programs to get all of the girls together and got them acquainted to me within that very first week," Showalter said. "But even though it was a little difficult, it was a really good learning experience.”
@KyraCobbie
kc036114@ohio.edu
