Difficult Conversations in the #seorl Residence Halls

Few places provide for the kind of experiences, conversations, conflicts, and lasting memories as a residence hall. Most of us can recall some of our best moments in college around the events that took place on our floor, in the quad, or some other event that happened because we lived on campus. The possibility for these kinds of experiences only happen because we are living with people who are not just like us! While these differences in people allow for great things, they also require we work to try and understand others as we develop as individuals. 

As our students arrive back on campus and we all watch the events in Ferguson, Missouri (as well as other places around our nation) some of our students may wish to discuss a variety of related topics as they spend time on their floor, in the hall lounges, and hopefully in the classroom. As a RA the first thing you must know is that you should not feel obligated to bring this subject up with students. While some students and staff may develop programs or activities around the events in Ferguson, and certainly a college or university campus is an ideal venue for examination of the issues that are on display over these past days, this is not something you should feel you must do.

Engaging in these kinds of discussion is critical to our communities; however, you should not run blindly into trying to lead such an organized activity if you don’t have the training or skill set to deal with the anger and feelings that can quickly escalate from these types of discussions. If you do discuss this subject, please keep some of the following guidelines in mind. Some suggestions for facilitating discussion regarding events around Ferguson, or any controversial topic, include the following:

 DO

·         Make sure that residents feel physically and emotionally safe in all aspects of the discussion

·         Establish ground rules

·         There will be times we will agree to disagree, etc… This is not wrong

·         Define respect

o   No use of derogatory language or labels

o   No singling out individuals to speak for an entire group of people

o   Listen to what is being said rather than formulating a response to how they are wrong

o   No monopolizing the conversation – consider establishing a maximum amount of times each individual can comment so that all can be heard

·         Know your level of influence and responsibility in this community; you occupy a unique role with your residents and should work to foster respect

DON’T

·         Overly emphasize or assume drama for those residents who identify as being from St. Louis or Ferguson area

·         Ask a resident directly for their experience or assume any one student speaks for the entire group

·         Abuse your influence in the community by using this as an opportunity to inform your residents as to your opinion and beliefs on this subject

We encourage any of you who might have questions or concerns about this subject to reach out to others. The best example you can set as a staff member is to acknowledge where you don’t have an answer and ask for help. If you find yourself unsure, that is a clear sign you should reach out for help.

Adapted from notes and discussion with Southeast faculty & Staff, Dr. Debbie Below, Dr. Kendra Skinner, and Tiffany Parker.

Textbook Rental & Buying Help

There are many questions I've seen about how to get your textbooks, rent them, buy them, etc.  To help here is some insight into textbooks and how it works.

For renting textbooks:
Textbook rental in the bottom floor of the library, the entrance is on the side by Dearmont Hall (there is a sign) will scan your ID when you enter and give you a copy of your schedule. You use this to look for your class books, which are arranged by class. Once you select your books you check out with your ID and they are charged to your student account.  The staff at textbook rental monitor class enrollment to make sure there are enough books for each student in a class. You choose the specific textbook from the shelf you want. Some want the books already highlighted, others want the newest looking one, etc. For example if you are in PS103, you will see the books arranged by class (so look for PS on the shelves, they are in alphabetical order) and choose the textbook for PS103. The rental fee is $25.94 per course, not per book for the duration of the semester. All rental books must be returned in satisfactory condition on or before the Monday following finals week. PLEASE note this, turning in your book that you left most of the semester in the back of your pickup truck or that you left on the floor in a basement of your house that flooded, means you bought the book (minus the rental charge). 

You can follow this link to learn more, including a FAQ section that talks about what happens to lost books, can your parents checkout your books, and can you rent books for classes you are not in. http://www.semo.edu/textbookrental/rent/index.html

Buying textbooks:
While not common for first year students, you may have to buy a book and you do this at the bookstore in the University Center. The books are also arranged by course and you select your book and then checkout. At the bookstore you can pay for them (cash, credit, debit) or have the charge applied to your student account. For some books at the bookstore you might be able to rent them. This can sound confusing because it is not part of the University's textbook rental program, but the information on the shelf where you pickup the book explains it all. You will see a note that says either "by it" or "rent it." This limited rental program is one advantage of the partnership we have with Follett corporation managing the University's bookstore. Follett looks at books from across all it stores, think thousands, and because of this can allow students to rent some textbooks because of the demand across the nation.  For 90% of first year students you won't be buying your textbooks and certainly won't have to consider this rental program until you get to be a second semester sophomore or a junior.

For more information on buying textbooks you can check out the Bookstore's website at http://www.bkstr.com/southeastmissouriststore/home/

Advice from my side (instructor) of the classroom:

1. You should go to your first class before you buy your book to see what the faculty tells you about the text. I always cover this in my classes on the first day the specific text(s) my students need/don't need.
2. If you have any issue, you should ask either the textbook rental or Bookstore staff. There are extra people on hand at the start of the semester to help with questions.
3. Highlighted textbooks seem like a great shortcut on what is important, but remember this is what another student, likely taking the class from a different instructor thought was important.

Goodbye to #SEORL Residence Life

This week marks my departure from the Office of Residence Life at Southeast. While I will still get to work with Residence Life as the AVP for Southeast, it is of course not the same. I’ve enjoyed working with some great people in Residence Life and any success in my career is a product of the time so many professionals have given to me. I hesitate to name people, however, there are some who have been on the Residence Life journey with me for many years in the central office of Residence Life that I must thank for the time we worked together: Jim Settle, Gwen Duncan, Kendra Skinner, Allan Mauk, Bruce Hanebrink, Kim Fees, and Vicki Schrieber to name just a few. Of course there are many Hall Directors that I have had the great opportunity to work with and the energy these professionals bring to Residence Life is one of the things I enjoyed most about the work in Residence Life. Every year there seems to be some new funny story that only Res Lifers understand, like can my son get an extra key so we can pay a house keeper to come to his room when he is at class to clean it? Or can you not assign me to a room with my best friend, even though we requested one another? I don’t want to tell him/her that I don’t want to live with them. The diversity of challenges that working in residence life provides is difficult to match in higher education. Few other offices get to touch so many areas of campus life and for this I am thankful for the past 14 years of time in the Office of Residence Life at Southeast.

I am very confident in the new Director and look forward to seeing her vision and direction of the office. We are fortunate as a University to have had a talented Associate Director ready to step into the Director position and after only a month it is clear to see the University’s decision to select Kendra was the correct one.

I promise to try and avoid meddling in Residence Life too often. Of course on occasion I still plan to come back to my old professional home and to keep things interesting I won’t call before making the trek from the south side of campus just to see how things are going.