As Fairfield struggles with its Residence Life system and its many troubles this year, students at other schools around the country are also experiencing inconsistencies among RAs and the enforcement of resident hall rules.
At the University of Oregon, the campus newspaper reports that mix-ups within the administration have led to unwarranted write-ups. Students and RAs alike are blaming the problem on failures in the system.
The system [at Oregon] and enforcement of rules lacks consistency, Oregon RAs told The Oregon Daily newspaper.
Students share the same feelings that the RAs do.
“It’s not enforced equally across the board,” said Alumnus Will Carson in the Oregon Daily. “Some RAs will write you up for anything. There really isn’t a whole lot of consistency.”
At Boston University, RAs are inconsistent with enforcing the rules. They only act as RAs when on duty, sophomore Ben Banderas told The Daily Free Press.
“An RA’s only job, I think, is to make students miserable in dorms,” said Banderas. “They seem unmotivated and only wake up when its time to sniff out a shot glass or a candle.”
At Fairfield, students believe that RAs are still kids, just like those they supposed to be in charge of.
J.D. Roman ’07 doesn’t think students are fit to be disciplinarians and supervisors.
“I get what they’re trying to do, but they’re just kids like us,” he said.
On the second floor of Jogues Hall, a freshman dorm, students have dealt with inconsistency all year from all their RAs.
John Zanzarella ’08 thinks RAs are too strict and only write people up.
However, other students complain that the RAs are not strict enough.
“Most nights, the floor is incredibly loud until the early morning,” said Ric Gruber ’08. “Some of us need sleep, and the RA doesn’t do anything about it.”
Max Aiuto ’08, another second floor resident, believes that there are two types of RAs.
“One kind [of RA] just needs the money and doesn’t do anything,” said Aiuto. “The other kind thinks they are all-powerful and abuse their power.”
Associate Director of Residence Life Laura Cantrell said that different people won’t always deal with situations in the same way.
“We have 48 RAs here at Fairfield. All of them will have differences in the way they deal with things,” she said.
RAs agree.
“I try to balance between being a disciplinarian and documenting students with being a teacher and trying to make students understand that they made a bad decision,” said Mike Murphy ’06, an RA in Jogues.
Murphy believes that most students don’t understand how tough it is to be an RA and to try to keep everyone’s best interests in mind.
But most students say that they understand that RAs have to make hard decisions. Some think that RAs are not the right choice for keeping residence halls under control.
Some students suggested having a public safety officer or security guard in the halls at the times when RAs are supposed to be on duty.
“I would be comfortable with a public safety officer on call in the late-night hours,” said Rob Guidotti ’08. “As long as it’s an adult making unbiased decisions, I would be fine with that.”
Cantrell believes that if most schools around the world operate with the RA system, Fairfield should be able to work with it just fine.
“The idea of the RA has been around for a long time. We would be underestimating our students by saying that they could not be role models for others,” she said.
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