For the first time ever, students applying for 2013-2014 Residential Education (ResEd) house staff positions will be able to simultaneously submit applications across a broader range of positions, according to Associate Dean of ResEd Jennifer Calvert.
Previously, potential staffers had to choose between one of four application tracks: Peer Health Educator (PHE), Resident Computer Consultant (RCC), Resident Tutor (RT), Resident Assistant (RA) or the House Manager or Theme House staff track. Students were only able to cross-apply within the final track. For 2013-14, applicants can apply to any combination of jobs excluding Tutor positions.
This year’s application will be released on Dec 3. The application for PHE, RA, RCC, House Manager and Theme House positions will be due on Jan. 17. Applications for tutoring staff will be due on Jan 28.
“In the old system, choice gets forced without good information,” Calvert said. “You might hedge your bets and decide you want to be X position because you have a greater likelihood of getting it. We want to put the right people in the right places.”
It remains to be seen how these changes will affect the number of candidates for staff positions. Both Calvert and Peer Health Education Coordinator Colin Campbell ’11 said they expect that there will be an increase in the number of PHE applications.
“Before the application process even started in past years, prospective PHEs and prospective RAs would have to choose which path they wanted to apply,” Campbell said. “The idea is that [the new application] will increase our numbers because so many people contacted me in the process saying ‘I really want to be a PHE, but I might want to be an RA. Is there any way I can do both?’ This is the first year you can apply to be an RA in Twain and a PHE in Cedro and an RCC in West Lagunita.”
Current Serra PHE Nathan Polanco ’14 expressed similar thoughts.
“I don’t know if [the new system] would make it more competitive, but I think that it’s a better way to do it,” Polanco said. “There’s a lot of people who try out to be an RA, but then they end up not actually getting the position, so if they still wanted to be a staff member, they could be a PHE or something else.”
Polanco said that the new system would not have affected his own application process because he was only interested in the PHE position.
Over the past several years, the number of RA applications has steadily increased. For the current school year, ResEd received 429 applications, up from 329 for 2011-2012 and 307 for 2010-2011.
According to Calvert and Campbell, approximately 30 PHEs, 180 RAs, 44 Theme House Staff and 200 House Managers are hired each year. They expect those numbers to remain consistent next year.
Also different in the housing staff application process this year is ResEd’s new application software system.
“For a student’s experience, I think the new platform will feel less 1982 and more 2012, which is great,” Calvert said. “The biggest functionality difference that applicants and houses will experience is that the way that you set up interviews is much more fluid.”
According to Calvert, the platform automates emails to applicants so they no longer have to log in to the ResEd website to find out hiring decisions.
Campbell said that he hopes the new system will also lead to a better overall result of the staff hiring process.
“In some ways, on the administrative side, we are making this a little more difficult,” Campbell said. “But we have students who are applying to these staff positions that take up a lot of time and are a huge part of your Stanford experience, so we give them more options and it will hopefully lead to overall satisfaction.”
The Residential Education Convention job fair for prospective staffers will take place on the first week of winter quarter, according to ResEd’s website.