The enhanced academic experience, along with the personal, close-knit community fostered by residential education at Stanford is truly unique, and I cannot praise enough its positive impact on my own personal and intellectual development. That being said, my experience as a Resident Assistant this year has convinced me that there needs to be a deep philosophical change in the way Stanford Residential Education operates. Since the majority of Stanford undergraduates live on campus throughout their years as students, Stanford Res. Ed. has the potential to greatly influence our personalities, characters, and understanding of the world.
Given the enormity of the task of facilitating a peaceful and academic learning environment in student dormitories, Resident Assistants (RA’s) – the main points of connection between administrators and residents – are required to attend a three-week training session prior to the beginning of the school year. In order to fulfill its responsibility of “developing the policies, programs, and staffing which support the intellectual, educational, and community-building activities in student residences” students are bombarded with marginally useful seminars and lectures that a majority of Resident Assistants do not attend (attendance is not kept). The result is a student staff that is inadequately prepared to handle the countless issues that arise university dormitories.
As a Resident Assistant, I am deeply concerned with the policies in place to address scenarios common in freshmen dorms – underage drinking, near fatal emergencies, roommate conflicts, and sexual harassment. I will discuss underage drinking as an example.
According to my understanding of the law in the United States, individuals under the age of 21 should not be consuming or purchasing alcohol. During RA training, however, this matter is never directly addressed. Instead, the expectation is that underage freshmen and sophomores will drink regardless, and that it is the RA’s job to deal with it. The illegal activity, however, is not the only problem. In addition to breaking the law, many of these students are belligerent (I have been attacked by a resident) and inconsiderate (I have had to step in urine barefoot to make sure a resident does not fall off his bed). When an ambulance is called for an emergency, there is an unwritten expectation that RA’s will accompany the resident to the hospital for the remainder of the night. Yet instead of tackling the core of the problem through preventative measures, Res. Ed. holds a reactive philosophy. Rather than encouraging students not to drink illegally/irresponsibly, they are taught how to deal with those that drink illegally/irresponsibly. The fact of the matter is, by turning a blind-eye to underage drinking, we are implicitly AND explicitly endorsing illegal and often unethical behavior. To quote an unheeded proposal put forth by a Resident Fellow in Wilbur earlier this year, “Dormitories and student rooms [should not be] “safe havens” from the police or other law enforcement authorities.”
That these policies are out-of-step and need to be updated is a given, and is actually not the crux of the issue. What is more fundamentally problematic is the lack of transparency and student input in formulating rules and policies. This year, I have gone to several Resident Deans for various issues, and have been consistently rebuffed with statements such as “I am sorry you do not agree with our system” and “You have to go through a process.” This begs the question: What is the meaning and role of the term “Assistant” for the Resident Assistant? Rather than heeding our advice, Stanford Residential Education has operated as an independent entity that does not really seek student input or even consider our opinion seriously. The training period at the beginning of the year is helpful for learning what the Resident Deans want from Resident Assistants, but perhaps an orientation from students to administrators might be useful also.
Ultimately, I am writing this article in an effort to help improve the system. I strongly believe Stanford Residential Education has lost touch with its original mission of helping students learn and develop by providing them with support staff who can relate because of their age and stage in life. There is a reason Resident Assistants are students – we have an otherwise unavailable perspective of residential problems. As such, it is vital that residential administrators listen to Resident Assistants rather than follow outdated procedures and protocols that do not take into account the reality of the situation.
Mohammad Ali, Class of 2010
Resident Assistant, Wilbur