Often the first friendly face underclassmen see while moving into their dorms each fall, Tufts' resident assistants (RAs) create an ever−present support system throughout the year for students in residence halls. One may wonder, however, how the university chooses these friendly faces out of a myriad of applicants to ensure that students have a trusted go−to resource just a few doors down.
The three−part application process for the upcoming academic year is already complete, and on Feb. 24 candidates were informed of the selection decisions.
Prospective RAs must first fill out a paper application, which asks a broad array of questions attempting to determine what skills the student can bring to the table.
"One of the biggest roles of the RA is to build community, so we ask them what they'd do to build community," Doreen Long, associate director of the Office of Residential Life and Learning, said.
After submitting their applications, students go through two rounds of interviews in January and February: a group interview and then an individual session. The group interviews are usually conducted among six candidates, with six current RAs and a resident director in the room to supervise.
The prospective RAs are given several residence hall−themed activities to complete, according to Will Schwartz, a senior and current RA.
"[In one of them] you have a list of phone calls and you have to rank them in terms of importance," Schwartz said.
This activity seemingly tests a prospective RA's ability to prioritize problems in a dorm, but the interviewers never tell the students exactly why they are performing these tasks.
"It's an interesting experience because as you're doing it, you're not really sure what they're looking for," Schwartz said.
A fair amount of the interview, however, is devoted to assessing group dynamics, according to Long.
"It's really just to see how they interact with their peers," she said. "A lot of it boils down to leadership."
Schwartz emphasized that they're looking for a balance.
"We want to see if they dominate or to see if they're a bit too passive," Schwartz said.
Prospective RAs are then brought in for their individual interviews conducted by two current RAs and a resident director. These interviews are not only a chance to further determine what the applicants can contribute to the program, but also a chance to learn about them as people, according to junior Crystal Bui, a current RA.
"Speaking to candidates in a personal setting lets us get to know them better," she said.
Bui also believes that having current RAs conduct the interviews is beneficial because of their personal connections to the program and ability to identify other students who will also share a passion for the job.
"I have an attachment and a fondness for the position. … Having current RAs interview new RAs is effective because we have that attachment to the position," she said.
Determining if a candidate is a good fit for the program is only half the battle; interviewers also try to determine where the applicants will fit best, according to Schwartz.
"We're trying to identify communities that they work best with," he said.
Long added that RAs have the opportunity to work in some of the specialized housing on campus.
"Some RAs want to work with all freshmen," she said. "Other RAs, not so much. A lot of it is fit. Fit with the building, fit with the rest of the RAs. … It's kind of like putting a puzzle together."
After completing the interview process and being selected, the new RAs return to campus before freshman orientation begins to undergo an intensive 9−day training session. After a day of moving in, the new recruits are whisked away on an overnight trip.
"We take them to a camp down on the Cape," Long said. "It's a time to do team building and staff bonding."
Besides playing beach volleyball and kayaking, the retreat is a time to get to know the staff family that they will be a part of for the next year, according to Bui.
"There's a lot of talking and bonding, breaking the discomfort with being with a bunch of people you don't know," she said. "They really want to push us to bond naturally in the first couple of days."
Following their return to campus, the schedules of new RAs fill up quickly.
"Then we get into the nuts and bolts of the job," Long said, adding that the RAs learn about programming, on−call duties, mediating roommate conflicts, different diversity topics and the like. Each day is filled up with training sessions, according to Schwartz.
"We spent the whole morning talking about suicide prevention issues once, then we spent the entire afternoon with [Tufts Violence Prevention Program Coordinator] Elaine Theodore, talking about sexual harassment," he said.
A good deal of time is also devoted to alcohol education, including the physiological effects of alcohol, statistics for drinking patterns on campus and alternative programming for those students who don't drink.
"We try to give them a picture of what drinking's like on campus," Director of Alcohol and Health Education Ian Wong said.
The new RAs are also presented with numerous hypothetical situations. Senior Kenneth Burris, a former RA, said part of training entails going from building to building and dealing with different scenarios in each building.
"There'd be someone who is about to commit suicide [in one building] and they wanted to see how you'd react," he said.
The training is less about memorizing hypothetical situations than about giving the RAs a point of reference, according to Bui. She went on to say that training also provides a necessary framework of trust between all the new RAs.
"We learn to bond, to trust each other. …The training facilitates a sense of camaraderie," she said.
For Long, the goal of training is to provide RAs with the tools they need to be effective role models and campus leaders. RAs must be prepared for the moments when they must take charge and run programming for their residents.
"It's about making the transition from being a resident to being the person that people are coming to for advice," she said. "Hopefully in training, we're giving them the tools so that they can be seen as leaders on the floor."
