Working in an Apartment verses a Traditional Residence Hall

By Brian Root, Graduate Resident Director, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Over the past decade or two, the typical residence hall has changed dramatically. Many colleges have gone from housing their students in the traditional, one-room arrangements to housing them in much more extravagant apartment or suite-style living arrangements.

The days of bunk beds and community bathrooms are apparently becoming a thing of the past. Private bedrooms wired with cable TV and Internet hookups are a thing of the here and now.

Today’s college students might be foolish not to prefer modern apartment-style living arrangements to traditional residence halls. These living arrangements offer privacy and luxuries that traditional halls do not offer, sometimes including separate phone lines, air conditioning and even full-size kitchens with dishwashers.

These changes in living arrangements mean great changes for the resident assistant who works in these halls. This author speaks from experience.

As a former undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, a small public university in southwestern Pennsylvania, I spent two years as a resident assistant (RA) in a traditional residence hall. I also spent two years living in an on-campus apartment that featured a full-size kitchen, huge living room, two bathrooms, four bedrooms and two desktop computers with Internet connection.

Over the years, I discovered that there are several features that distinguish apartment living from traditional hall living. There are the obvious features and then there are the not-so-obvious features.

First and foremost, I discovered that, as an RA in apartment-style housing, I had to try harder to develop a community within my building. I had to make numerous extra efforts to get my residents out of their apartments, whether it was by knocking on doors more often or being more creative with my programming. After all, you can’t get to know your residents when they’re locked up in their apartment all day.

It became abundantly clear that my residents had everything they needed in the comfort of their own apartments, which was a very good thing yet a very bad thing all at the same time. The open-door policy that I saw in other traditional halls on campus was literally non-existent at first in my building. So I had to lead by example.

I enacted a plan to do as much as possible to get my residents interacting with one another. I always had my apartment door open. I started a monthly newsletter that listed birthdays and featured different residents in each issue. I developed programs that required residents to come out into the lobby area or go to one another’s rooms. I planned holiday decorating parties for our building lobby. Slowly but surely I saw some changes. They came with a great deal of persistence. So, that’s lesson number two – be persistent.

I recognized that my residents had more of a respect for their privacy now that they lived in an apartment. In traditional halls, there is very little privacy. You share bathrooms, TVs and telephones. That is not the case in an apartment.

Resident Assistants preparing to move into an apartment or suite-style environment need to be prepared. Be prepared to make those extra efforts. As is always the case, extra effort always distinguishes you in any situation from others who go day-to-day doing the minimum.

About the Author

Brian Root is a current graduate student in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and a Graduate Resident Director at IUP’s Punxsutawney campus. He served three years as a Resident Assistant at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Writing. He can be reached at b.k.root@gmail.com.