News
April 20
As the semester winds down, Residential Assistant (RA) frustration with the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) may have reached a boiling point. The Daily attempted to contact every RA over the weekend, and all but one of the 12 RAs who agreed to discuss the situation anonymously complained that ResLife is ineffective, disorganized, and in need of reform. There are roughly 75 RAs. Although ResLife policy forbids RAs from speaking to the press, a growing dissatisfaction prompted two senior RAs to speak on the record this week. Both seniors Pritesh Gandhi and Shaunik Panse were unsatisfied specifically with ResLife's procedure for reporting incidents. They said since RAs live with students, RAs should be allowed to participate in the disciplinary process after a complaint is followed. "No one has more knowledge about what's going on," Gandhi said. In addition, Panse said that RAs should be allowed to hear the outcome of disciplinary referrals. "I've had to find out from residents," he said. He argued that RAs need to be involved so they can inform other residents and prevent similar problems from happening in the future. "RAs are supposed to have this information," Panse said. Currently, RAs are informed of the outcome if one of their residents must be monitored, but are otherwise not informed. Ghandi, who was an RA his sophomore year before going abroad for all of last year, complained that new ResLife communication policies -- including reverting from an online report database to paper carbon copies -- have hampered RA effectiveness. Response time to incident reports has increased. Gandhi said that some students have waited as long as three months to hear the results of their complaints--a delay that he found unacceptable. The system previously made descriptions of incidents available to RAs. "No one talks to anyone -- it's a real problem," Gandhi said. Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said his office and ResLife are sometimes required by law to keep certain types of referrals and evaluations confidential. These protections, which apply to referrals for counseling or other mental health treatments, extend to faculty members and employees of the Dean of Students Office, Reitman said. The communication problems have caused several RAs to simply give up, and begin to ignore ResLife directives. "Finally, I realized there was no point in complaining," one RA said. "Don't deal with the main office," another RA said. "I go in there as little as possible." Other RAs said they have stopped filing incident reports, and have been ignoring violations of the alcohol policy. A new ResLife policy this year requires alcohol violations, including first offenses, to be reported to Reslife. ResLife Director Yolanda King was not able to have a sit-down interview with The Daily, but responded by e-mail. She did not respond to questions on the RAs' complaints, but offered a general statement via e-mail. "The Office of Residential Life and Learning is currently undergoing restructuring within the department in order to provide the best housing services and programming to students who reside in the residence halls," the statement said. King's e-mail also said ResLife continues to promote "safety, comfort, respect, and free exchange of dialogue," both inside and outside of the residence halls. When asked what could be done to improve the situation with ResLife, many RAs were direct. "Fire Yolanda King," one said. Several RAs said their relationship with ResLife had deteriorated to the point where only King's removal could improve the situation. "Removing her from the situation will improve things," Panse said. Many other RA assessments of King were unflattering. "She has a huge temper and comes across as very militant," one RA said. "She's a hard person to work with," another RA said. According to Panse, the lack of communication within the office has worsened since three senior ResLife officials left the office the past year. Associate Director for Occupancy Management Lorraine Toppi took an early retirement, Associate Director for Experimental Learning Dean Gendron left for health reasons, and Administrative Coordinator Susan Storm transferred to a job in the Office of Institutional Research. Toppi and Gendron were both ResLife veterans, with over 20 years experience between them. Panse said that prior to King's hiring, when Toppi was the acting director, "Reslife was like a family to me." He described Gendron and Toppi as the "olive branch in the office." Most RAs contrasted the problems with the main Reslife office with the smooth functioning of their individual duty teams. Duty teams include anywhere from five to 11 RAs and cover between one to three residence halls. Duty teams are lead by a Residential Director (RD). "There is great communication within our duty team -- that should not be underestimated," one RA said. Other RAs gave a similarly positive assessment of their duty teams, and they said that their RDs allow open discussion of problems. One RD said the views expressed by RAs have "not been a problem for me." The RD said there has not been a significant change in ResLife communication under King and in previous years. "I adore my RAs and I love my students," the RD said. Despite these positive assessments, several RAs are not planning to return. One RA expressed a desire to be an RA again, but that "doesn't mean I'd like to be involved with ResLife in the future." Even though speaking with the press endangers RAs' employment, both Gandhi and Panse said the problems needed to be exposed for polices to change. "Next year, we hope things are going to be changed," said Gandhi, who plans to graduate this year. "We were at a point where we felt that we needed to respond to the situation," Panse said. Reitman said he would investigate the concerns of the RAs, but he was not ready to make any judgments on the accusations.
